Michael Shermer with Dr. Richard Wrangham - Goodness Paradox: Virtue & Violence in Human Evolution

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We Homo sapiens can be the nicest of species and also the nastiest. What occurred during human evolution to account for this paradox? What are the two kinds of aggression that primates are prone to, and why did each evolve separately? How does the intensity of violence among humans compare with the aggressive behavior of other primates? How did humans domesticate themselves? And how were the acquisition of language and the practice of capital punishment determining factors in the rise of culture and civilization?
Authoritative, provocative, and engaging, The Goodness Paradox offers a startlingly original theory of how, in the last 250 million years, humankind became an increasingly peaceful species in daily interactions even as its capacity for coolly planned and devastating violence remains undiminished. In tracing the evolutionary histories of reactive and proactive aggression, biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham forcefully and persuasively argues for the necessity of social tolerance and the control of savage divisiveness still haunting us today.
Dr. Richard Wrangham is Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology, Harvard University. He is the author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human and Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. He has studied wild chimpanzees in Uganda since 1987 and received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of the British Academy.
Dr. Wrangham and Dr. Shermer discuss:
• the paradox of Homo sapiens
• the two types of aggression: proactive and reactive
• the evolutionary origins of aggression and the logic behind it
• the neural pathways of aggression
• how species can be both artificially and self-domesticated
• the tyrant/bully problem and how our ancestors solved it
• war and human nature.
This dialogue was recorded on March 5, 2019 as part of the Science Salon Podcast series hosted by Michael Shermer and presented by The Skeptics Society, in California.
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[@davidanderson9664]

This guy is The Boss, you snagged a whale here Prof Shermer. I've listened to this three times. His ev bio, psych and neurology even are top notch. Thank you. D.A., J.D. (atty/writer) NYC

[@panayiotisstavrou3283]

Michael, imagine another 1000 of you around the world, spreading with such a down to earth nature these wonderful discussions/debates with the same approach. World peace pretty quickly!

[@willmpet]

I heard that in the Nesbit study that one northern person reacted very strongly to the bump and being called a “jerk” but he had come from a family that had its roots in the south!

[@xaviergamer5907]

Thank you for these fantastic interviews.

[@KeithCooper-Albuquerque]

This was a fascinating interview! I'm buying more books!

[@davidwilkie9551]

All the good stuff

[@geezzerboy]

Very interesting book, but I was disappointed that there was no mention of the current plague of mass murderers. It seems that they are using a combination of reactive and proactive aggression. Perhaps Dr Wranghan discussed it in his first book. I'll find out when I read it.

[@ericpatterson8794]

Alexander dropped the ball.

[@Brooke95482]

PBS has a show about big brains related to humans having MS in our jaw muscles. Chimps must chew for many hours a day, as mentioned, and this requires a newborn chimp to have powerful jaw muscles. Because we have MS in our jaw muscles the tectonic plates that enclose the brain take years to fuse and so make room for the brain to grow.

[@LogicAndReason2025]

The sad thing is that we are at a time when most conflict could be eliminated if only the Western democracies of the world would, together, link trade to human rights in a positive and consistent way. It is the global market race-to-the-bottom that keeps exploitation, oppression and the military industrial complex, profitable. Linking trade to human rights would make everybody better off by creating a stronger incentive toward freedom, than the current incentive toward oppression. Oppression is what leads to violence, and violence leads to unstable governments.

[@raminsafizadeh]

Is it domestication or partially, sublimation-on the difference between chimps and sapiens? Sublimated power plays between individuals, in the social, go on constantly, one could argue, incessantly!

[@PMFtheman]

Can someone explain, using metaphor or even an actual example, of what it means that half of most traits or behaviors are genetic? I'm not questioning the research; it's just really hard to understand how that plays out in the world.

[@PMFtheman]

Why did you delete your comments?

[@chuckleezodiac24]

Thanks, MS. This video has 9K views, Rogan-Hancock gets 16M views and Bieber has 133 million twitter followers. I guess that's where civilization is headed.

[@proudatheist2042]

What's inherently wrong with Rogan and Graham Hancock getting 16 million views? I do understand your dismay about Justin Bieber having that many followers. I am surprised that Dr. Wrangham hasn't been a guest on Rogan's show given his love of primates.

[@usergiodmsilva1983PT]

After Frans de Waal another great primatologist! I wonder...why don't we have floppy ears?

[@uvwuvw-ol3fg]

Probably cause another sign of neoteny is smaller firmer ears, chimpanzees have bigger ears than bonobos.

[@proudatheist2042]

My hunch is that no one wanted to have sex with people with floppy ears. When people with specific, non attractive traits don't have sex and don't have children, those traits will no longer be seen.

[@drstrangelove09]

Liked it until the very end. "The Patriarchy" Oh, man, here we go!!!! And Michael, you seem to be on board...?

[@uvwuvw-ol3fg]

Agreed, seems like the reduced levels of patriarchy and increased prosociality is very rare. www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02955/full

[@virtuousvillain9874]

This system of beta men getting together with the power to kill their obstacles is patriarchy, its the natural order of things and the only way society is created.

[@drstrangelove09]

@@virtuousvillain9874 no idea what you are saying and I hate the image that you're using for your youtube account

[@nasirfazal5440]

Is putin proactive aggressive?

[@Seekthetruth3000]

Violence by its very nature is ugly but sadly, sometimes good people have to use violence in order to defend themselves. So, be good, do good , and try not to do harm.😪😪😪😪😪😪😪