Reading Our Times cover image

Reading Our Times

How has our evolutionary past shaped us? In conversation with Harvey Whitehouse

Dec 10, 2024
48:39
Nick Spencer speaks with Harvey Whitehouse, Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford

The claim that evolution can help us understand, even explain, the modern world and modern mind has not always had a happy history, veering between overclaim and catastrophe. But the opposite idea - that everything is culture and nothing nature - is hardly more convincing.

So, can we threat this needle? Can we have nuanced and realistic understanding of the impact of evolution on us today without going down the rabbit hole of determinism.

So, what impact has evolution had on us - our communities and societies, our morality and our religion.

Purchase Harvey's book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inheritance-Evolutionary-Origins-Modern-World/dp/1529152224/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

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