What’s Love Got To Do With Evolution?

Steve Paulson, Jeff Schloss and David Sloan Wilson

Jim Gill (WPR)

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Imagine you’re on a beach and off in the distance you spot a drowning child. Would you risk your life to save them? History is filled with countless examples of people risking life and limb for complete strangers, but why? How can evolutionary science explain that kind of selfless altruism? Evolutionary biologists Jeff Schloss and David Sloan Wilson joined Steve Paulson to explore how group selection can explain altruism.

This episode was produced in partnership with the Center for Humans and Nature, an organization that brings together scholars from a diversity of disciplines to think creatively about our relationships with nature and each other. What do you think evolution can tell us about love and morality? Share your thoughts at humansandnature.org. This episode was made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation.