Episode 47: Adam Rutherford on Humans, Animals, and Life in General
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Most people in the modern world — and the vast majority of Mindscape listeners, I would imagine — agree that humans are part of the animal kingdom, and that all living animals evolved from a common ancestor. Nevertheless, there are ways in which we are unique; humans are the only animals that stress out over Game of Thrones (as far as I know). I talk with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about what makes us human, and how we got that way, both biologically and culturally. One big takeaway lesson is that it's harder to find firm distinctions than you might think; animals use language and tools and fire, and have way more inventive sex lives than we do.
Adam Rutherford received his Ph.D. in genetics from University College London. He has written numerous books on genetics, evolution, synthetic biology, human history, and the origin of life. His most recent book is Humanimal: How Homo Sapiens Became Nature's Most Paradoxical Creature — A New Evolutionary History. (Published in the UK with the more manageable title The Book of Humans: The Story of How We Became Us.) He frequently appears on and hosts science programs for the BBC on both radio and television, including Inside Science for BBC Radio 4.
United States
there are skeletons far older than 20,000 years in the Americas. The Bering Strait theory is only one more recent migration, older ones happened into the souther hemisphere of the Americas, from Oceania.
Adam and other scientists have noted the importance of language in distinguishing humans from all other species - but what about the verifiable languages of whales, dolphins, primates etc? Confused on the distinction here