#517 James Costa: Darwin, Wallace, The Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man (150th anniversary)

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Dr. James Costa is Executive Director of the Highlands Biological Station and Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Western Carolina University. He has authored 7 books, including Darwin's Backyard: How Small Experiments Led to a Big Theory (W. W. Norton, 2017) — a finalist for the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Prize — and the co-edited volume An Alfred Russel Wallace Companion (Chicago, 2019).

In this episode, we talk about Darwin, Wallace, On the Origin of Species, and The Descent of Man. We first talk about On the Origin of Species, where Darwin’s ideas came from, and in what ways they differ from Wallace’s. We then get into The Descent of Man, and go through some of the most important topics covered there, including sexual selection, our primate origins, the evolutionary origins of our mental faculties, race and sex differences, cultural evolution, and (cultural) group selection. We also talk about how Darwin was a precursor of evolutionary psychology. We discuss the eusocial insects, and if their behavior is best understood as the result of inclusive fitness/kin selection or group selection. Finally, we give a summary of some of the most important things Darwin got right and wrong.

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