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The Secret of our Success

Dr. Joseph Henrich builds the case that social learning and cultural evolution have co-evolved with our biology and made humans the success we are.

Cultural Evolution, not innate intelligence, is what makes humans unique

CBC Radio ·
Dr. Joseph Henrich (centre, kneeling) and his team doing field-work in Fiji (Mereani Tuidama)
Quirks and Quarks16:34The Secret Of Our Success - 2016/03/05 - Pt. 5
Humans are the most successful species on the planet - well, maybe after the ants - and we generally give the credit to our large brains, and our individual intelligence.
But in a new book, Dr. Joseph Henrich, a professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, says that individually humans aren't really that special. He makes the case that it's our collective intelligence - our culture - enabled by our unique ability to learn from each other - that's driven our biological evolution, and that's really behind our unique success.

Dr. Henrich's book is called, The Secret of Our Success - How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species, and Making us Smarter.

Related Links

- The Secret of Our Success
- Dr. Henrich's interview at Edge.org




 

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