Though many animals display cooperative behavior, human cooperation is distinct. Alan Alda hosts E.O. Wilson, Sarah Hrdy and other leading evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and humanitarians as they examine the origins and evolution of human cooperative behavior.
This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
Alan Alda, a seven-time Emmy® Award winner, played Hawkeye Pierce and wrote many of the episodes on the classic TV series M*A*S*H. He has starred in, written, and directed many films, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Aviator.
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E.O. Wilson is a life-long explorer of the natural world whose pioneering studies of ants have led to revolutionary insights across a wide range of fields, from evolution to animal and human behavior.
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Dominic Johnson received a D.Phil. in evolutionary biology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in political science from Geneva University.
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Sarah Hrdy is Professor Emerita at the University of California, Davis. An award-winning author, Dr. Hrdy’s latest book is Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.
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Xavier LePichon is Professor and Chair of the Department of Geophysics at the College de France in Aix en Provence. In addition to his groundbreaking work in geophysics and plate tectonics, Prof. LePichon has done extensive research on human compassionate behavior and how society is structured counter-intuitively to the laws of natural selection.
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Rob Boyd is Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He studies the evolution of cooperation in large groups, and is the co-author of numerous books on cultural evolution, including Not By Genes Alone.
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