RSA Thursday - Mothers and Others
16th Jul 2009; 13:00
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Sarah Blaffer Hrdy comes to the RSA to present a new vision of human evolution and to argue that our capacity to understand, engage and empathise with each other stems from our status as a cooperatively parenting species.
In her new book Mothers and Others: the evolutionary origins of mutual understanding Sarah Hrdy explains that the key to this evolution lies in the primatologically unique length of human childhood. If the young were to survive in a world of scarce food, they needed to be cared for, not only by their mothers but also by siblings, aunts, fathers and friends.
Out of this complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the human capacity for understanding others. Mothers and others teach us who will care, and who will not.
Speaker: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, University of California, Davis
Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #rsamothers
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