On Humans

Ilari is taking some time off for Christmas and New Year. Instead of new episodes, this holiday season features some highlights from this fall's conversations.

This highlight revisits episode 1, where Ilari and Patricia Churchland discuss free will and neurophilosophy. For links and references, see the original episode.

Ilari is taking some time off for Christmas and New Year. Instead of new episodes, this holiday season features some highlights from this fall's conversations.

This highlight revisits episode 3, where Ruth Feldman explores the tricky relationship between the neurobiology of love and xenophobia. The discussion also touches upon early attachment as a source of our capacity to bond with others. 

This discussion includes studies on building relationships between Israeli and Palestinian youth, as well as studies on the capacity of fathers, including gay fathers, in providing equal care as primary caregivers. For links and references, see the original episode.

Ilari is taking some time off for Christmas and New Year. Instead of new episodes, this holiday season features some highlights from this fall's conversations.

This highlight revisits episode 2, where Philip Kitcher explores the relationship between secular humanism and religion. For links and references, see the original episode. 

Why do we love? And how much does our culture shape the way we do so?

In this episode, Ilari talks with Helen Fisher about the powers that drive and shape our romantic relationships. Ilari and Professor Fisher discuss:

• Is romantic love a modern invention?
• Is monogamy a social invention? 
• Do men care more about sex? Do women care more about romance?
• Why agriculture, especially with the plough, caused havoc in romantic relationships.
• Why divorces might be on the decline.
• A science-based guide for maintaining romantic relations (based on couples who are still in love after 25 years)
• Why (certain) antidepressants can kill the sex drive and blunt romantic love (to read more, see the end of the notes)
• How common is polygamy or polyandry? Where in the world do we find most "free love"?
• Why did homosexuality evolve?

Names mentioned

• Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (as recounted by Alison Gopnik in her The Gardener and the Carpenter)
• Bill Jankowiak
• Robert Sternberg (see episode 7)
• Anderson Thompson
• Bertrand Russell 

Technical terms and ethnic groups mentioned

• Ventral tegmental area VTA
• Hypothalamus
• Dopamine, testosterone, oxytocin, vasopressin, serotonine
• Monogamy (serial or lifelong; social or biological)
• Polygamy (several wives) and polyandry (several husbands) 
• Tlingit (the polyandrous Inuit society with wealthy women)
• Oneida community (in New York State)

Dig Deeper

Antidepressants: To read more about the possible effects of SSRIs on sex drive and romantic love, see ⁠⁠Tocco and Brumbaugh (2019)⁠⁠. Remember that this is for information only, and is not health advice. Always discuss with your doctor before making decisions about your medication.

Polyamory: In the episode, Professor Fisher suggests that many Amazonian tribes have informal polyandry, i.e. women have many partners, albeit only one formal husband. However, there are non-academic sources suggesting that formalised polyandry is common in the Zo’é community in Amazon. For some of these photos of Zo’é and other Amazonian tribes, many of whom exhibit remarkably liberal attitudes to sex, see the recent Amazonia exhibition in the London Science Museum.

In this episode, a philosopher of science from Cambridge offers us a cautiously optimistic guide to the science of happiness. Dr Anna Alexandrova, the author of A Philosophy for the Science of Well-being, and Ilari discuss questions such as:

• What do happiness questionnaires measure?
• Are rich countries happier than poorer ones?
• Should the science of happiness measure concepts such as “flourishing”? Or focus on simple questions like “how satisfied are you with your life”?
• Why psychologists and economists are averse to qualitative measures? When is this a problem?
• Why are some scholars so pessimistic about the science of happiness?
• Dr Alexandrova's experience of growing up in the Soviet Union and post-soviet Russia
• Is Ilari actually from the world’s happiest country?

Names mentioned

• Dan Hayburn (philosopher at St Louis University)
• Max Weber (sociologist 1864-1920)
• Polly Mitchell (philosopher at KCL)
• Thomas Kuhn (philosopher of science, 1922-1966)
• Johanna Thoma (philosopher at LSE)
• Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway (authors of Merchants of Doubt)
• Mark Fabian (political theorists at Cambridge)
• Jeffrey Sachs (economist at Columbia University)

Terms mentioned

• Utilitarianism
• Easterlin paradox
• World Happiness Report
• WELLBY (measure adopted by the UK government)
• “Participatory methods” (in construct validation)
• Turn To Us (UK-based anti-poverty charity)

Get in touch

• Form: https://on-humans.podcastpage.io/contact
• Email: makela dot ilari at outlook dot com

What is it like to be a non-human animal? Can neuroscience tell us the answer?

In one of the most famous philosophy essays of the 20th century, Thomas Nagel suggested that we can never use science to know what it is like to be another animal, say, a bat. Neuroscience can describe bat physiology. But it can never tell us “what it is like to be a bat”.

Gregory Berns is an animal neuroscientist. As you might guess, he disagrees with Nagel.

Berns is a pioneer in using fMRI scanning on dogs (who in his lab, participate voluntarily). And Berns believes that studying the dog brain can tell us what it is like to be a dog - or at least, give us a hint.

In this discussion, Ilari and Prof Berns discuss:

• Do dogs love their owners? The origins and findings of the Dog Project.
• Would Nagel actually disagree with Berns’ conclusions?
• Is attributing human emotions to dogs a form of anthropomorphism?
• The Panksepp vs Barrett debate in affective neuroscience: Are emotions hardwired to our brain? Or are they dependent on concepts and language?
• Animal welfare and speciesism: Are some species "special" in relevant ways? How do Prof Berns and Ilari approach the issue of animal welfare in their diets?

Names mentioned

• Rene Descartes (French philosopher, 1596-1650)
• Thomas Nagel (20th Century, 1937-)
• Jeremy Bentham (British philosopher & utilitarian, 1748-1832)
• Jaak Panksepp (Estonian-American neuroscientist, 1943-2017)
• Lisa Feldman Barrett (American neuroscientist, 1963-)
• Hal Hertzhog (anthrozoologist)

Technical terms mentioned

• fMRI (brain scanning technology)
• PET (brain scanning technology)
• Chemotaxis
• Claustrum
• Brain stem

Extra points

• Get in touch: email [email protected] or form https://on-humans.podcastpage.io/contact
• Ilari’s bonus recommendation (not a paid promotion): Gourmet-level insect foods from YumBug https://www.yumbug.com/shop

Thomas Hobbes famously wrote that life in the state of nature was “nasty, brutish, and short”. Recently, various scholars have claimed that Hobbes was basically right: our ancestors lived in a state of constant raiding and chronic warfare. Indeed, some have suggested that as many as 15% of ancestral humans died due to war. And the claims are made with the utmost confidence.

But there is something disturbing about this confidence. The earliest archaeological records of war are only c. 14 000 years old. And many anthropologists working with modern-day hunter-gatherers claim that they tend to be remarkably peaceful. 

The literature around this question is dense and difficult to penetrate. This episode aims to make it a notch more accessible. 

Douglas P. Fry is an anthropologist and a leading scholar on the topic. He has written extensively about the origins of war in books such as War, Peace and Human Nature. His papers on the matter have been published in top journals such as Science. And his conclusions might be surprising to many.

In this discussion, Ilari and Professor Fry talk about:

• The archaeological evidence for the origins of war.
• Why do some hunter-gatherers wage war? Why does Fry think that most of them do not? And why is the data in Better Angels of Our Nature so misleading - even fabricated?
• How common is lethal violence in mammals more generally? 
• How violent was the human Pleistocene (over 11,700 years ago)? Does it matter?

Ethnic groups mentioned

• Pacific Northwest hunter-gatherers (hunter-gatherer groups well-known for having complex “civilisation”, including social hierarchies, warfare and slavery)
• Calusa (a complex hunter-gatherer group in Florida)
• Tiwi (Australian hunter-gathers who are atypical for having clans and a high level of lethal violence)
• Andaman Islanders (in the Bay of Bengal)
• Iñupiaq (the warring Inuit group, which was not named in the discussion)

Names and technical terms

• Herbert Manscher
• Jane Goodall (primatologist who recorded so-called Gombe wars in chimpanzees)
• Steven Pinker 
• Samuel Bowles 
• Leslie Sponsel 
• Christopher Boehm
• C. Darwent, J. Darwent 

References

• Misreported “war deaths” in Better Angles of Out Nature (Fry & Söderberg 2019) and lethal violence in hunter-gatherers (Fry & Söderberg 2013)
• Lethal violence in mammals (Gomez et al. 2016) and in archaeological skeletons (Haas & Piscitelli) 
• Cooperation in a spatial prisoner’s dilemma (Aktipis 2004)
• Peace systems (video & the Nature article)

We often treat love as a single emotion. But simple questions like “how much do you love me?” can be misleading. Love is not a single dimension. It is a multitude. To really understand romantic bonds, a more nuanced vocabulary is needed.

Robert Sternberg is famous for creating such vocabulary.

Sternberg is a professor at Cornell University, where he teaches legendary classes on topics like intelligence (beyond IQ), wisdom, creativity, and of course, love and hate. But he is more than your average psychology professor: he is the 2nd most cited psychologist alive.*

In this discussion, Sternberg joins Ilari and his co-host, Blake Robertson, to discuss the elements of love and hate, and how to use these insights to create a better world.

Names & technical terms mentioned

• John Bowlby’s attachment theory
• Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
  • Alison Gopnik (quoted from conversation with Ezra Klein)
  • Agatha Christie
• Joan Crawford
• Anthony Ray Hinton, the author of The Sun Does Shine
  • Henry Hays, the only KKK member in the 20th Century to suffer capital punishment due to lynchings by the KKK.

References

• The Triangular Theory of Love (1986 paper)
• Triangular Theory Tested in 25 Countries (2021 paper)
• LoveMultiverse.com (website by Karin & Robert Sternberg)
• Dutton & Aron high bridge -experiment (1974 paper)
• Nature of Hate (book by Robert Sternberg & Karin Sternberg)

* After Martin Seligman, excluding neuroscientists and behavioural economists. Based on Google Scholar profiles in November 2022.

Humans live long, much longer than any of our closest relatives. For human females, this means living a large part of adulthood without being able to produce new offspring. This is an evolutionary puzzle. Indeed, menopause is exceedingly rare in the animal kingdom, typical only in humans and some species of whales.

Kristen Hawkes has a theory to explain this puzzle. Hawkes is an evolutionary anthropologist, best known for her pioneering role around the so-called “grandmother hypothesis”.

In this episode, Ilari and Professor Hawkes discuss two aspects of the grandmother hypothesis. First, why would humans have evolved to survive menopause? And second, why is this a big deal? What were the cascading changes that surviving the menopause arguably triggered?

The conversation touches upon many topics, such as:

• Grandmother hypothesis: the basics
• Rapid birth intervals in humans
• Pair bonding and romantic partnerships
• Role of fathers (and grandfathers)
• Brain size and brain development
• The “social appetite” in humans
• Humans vs chimpanzees: why are humans less competitive and more cooperative
• Climate changes and human origins

Technical terms & ethnic groups mentioned

• The Hadza (Tanzania)
• The Ache (Paraguay)
• Pliocene (5.3 million – 2.6 million years ago)
• Australopithecus (Wikipedia)
• Altricial (undeveloped, immature) vs precocial (well-matured early on) (Wikipedia)
• Mau Mau rebellion (a 1950’s rebellion against British rule in Kenya which included systemic torture by British colonial officers, Wikipedia)

Names mentioned

• Jane Goodall 
• Nicholas Blurton Jones
• James (Jim) O’Connell
• Geoff Parker
• Richard Wrangham
• Sherwood Washburn
• Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
• Barbara Finlay

References

• A 1998 overview of the grandmother hypothesis (by Kristen Hawkes) 
• Calories produced by mothers and grandmothers in the Hadza (by Kristen Hawkes)
• Distorting Darwinism (by Ilari)

Why do conspiracy theories seduce the minds of so many? 

Michael Shermer is a historian of science, best-selling author, founder of the Skeptic Society, and the host of a popular science podcast, Michael Shermer Show. His most recent book, Conspiracy, explores the causes and consequences of human gullibility regarding conspiracies. 

Ilari and Dr Shermer discuss the psychological reasons behind conspiracy theories, and what to do about them. This discussion touches upon topics from QAnon to flat earth, and from the 2020 election to the war in Ukraine. 

All of this does raise a question, though. What if we are both wrong? What if it is the conspiracists who have the truth? How would we know? Beyond just conspiracies, this discussion touches upon the very promise and danger of scientific scepticism. In the end, Ilari and Dr Shermer explore the very limits of the territory, in which we should use science as our guide. This is a discussion that ultimately relates to the role that science can play in moral progress - a topic explored by Shermer in his 2015 book, The Moral Arc.

Referenced works

• Whitson and Galinsky’s experiment on pattern recognition
• See also: A meta-analysis of similar experiments, which is critical of the original findings, but does find some similar effects
• Princeton study on rejection and conspiratorial tendencies
• Poll on 33% of Americans believing in 5G Dakota Crash is from work by Chrisopher Bader
• Ivan Krastev’s interview with Ezra Klein

Referenced conspiracy theories and related terms

• JFK Assassination
• January 6th Insurrection and the claim that the 2020 election was rigged
• The claim that Emmy Awards in 2004 and 2005 were rigged when the Apprentice lost against Amazing Race.
• QAnon
• OJ Simpson trials
• Flat earth -theories
• Holocaust denials
• 5G Dakota Crash

Other technical terms:

• Bayesian thinking 
• Type II and Type I errors (in statistics)
• Theraplay
• Is-ought gap (similar to the naturalistic fallacy)

Other names mentioned:

• Edward Snowden
• Carl Sagan
• Bill Bar
• Deepak Chopra
• Thomas Sowell