Science journalist Michelle Nijhuis and philosopher Peter Singer discuss the complex relationship between people and the other creatures they rely on.

Human beings may often view themselves as apart from animals. But even in the most urban existence, creatures big and small loom large in the day-to-day existence of just about everybody. Animals are sustenance, nuisance and company.

The relationships between people and the animals they rely on are often taken for granted, even though these relationships are embedded with deeply consequential questions. 

What right do human beings have to interrupt or manipulate the lives of other beings? What is that interruption doing to them? And what is it doing to humanity?

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, we invited science Nijhuis and Singer to answer these questions and to explain the history of humanity’s tangled relationship with the animal kingdom.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Seth Halleran, Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph