
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Simon Schaffer is interested in the human species in general and one member of it in particular. Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist and zoologist who set out the basic structure of how we name and understand life on earth. In doing so he broached the thorny question of where humans should sit among the species of the earth. A hundred years before Darwin he correctly placed us among the apes. Simon examines that relationship to see the things that mark our similarities and our differences. Simon comes face to face with 'Jock', an adult Gorilla at Bristol Zoo and talks to Prof. Robert Foley about human evolution. He also sees how Linnaeus' ideas were used to support racial science. After all if humans were more like apes perhaps some humans were more like apes than others.
By BBC Radio 44.5
3232 ratings
Simon Schaffer is interested in the human species in general and one member of it in particular. Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist and zoologist who set out the basic structure of how we name and understand life on earth. In doing so he broached the thorny question of where humans should sit among the species of the earth. A hundred years before Darwin he correctly placed us among the apes. Simon examines that relationship to see the things that mark our similarities and our differences. Simon comes face to face with 'Jock', an adult Gorilla at Bristol Zoo and talks to Prof. Robert Foley about human evolution. He also sees how Linnaeus' ideas were used to support racial science. After all if humans were more like apes perhaps some humans were more like apes than others.

6,788 Listeners

7,727 Listeners

4,172 Listeners

4,044 Listeners

10,712 Listeners

1,068 Listeners

5,478 Listeners

1,816 Listeners

3,238 Listeners

1,883 Listeners

1,781 Listeners

1,041 Listeners

2,077 Listeners

121 Listeners

376 Listeners

112,482 Listeners

7,222 Listeners

3,226 Listeners

15,609 Listeners

16,055 Listeners

1,605 Listeners

2,855 Listeners

3,043 Listeners

2,460 Listeners