meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Michael Shermer Show

288. Lucy Cooke — Bitch: On the Female of the Species

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Science, Natural Sciences

4.31K Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2022

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted. In her new book Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same — sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us a new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as males. This isn't your grandfather's (or Darwin's) evolutionary biology. It's more inclusive, and truer to life.

Shermer and Cooke discuss: the definition of male and female across the animal kingdom • male bias in the history of science • genes involved in sex determination and how they work • natural selection • sexual selection • adaptationism vs. non-adaptationism in evolutionary theory • Why do men have nipples? • Why do women have orgasms? • why female animals are just as promiscuous, competitive, aggressive, dominant and dynamic as males • what humans can learn from non-human animals • maternal and paternal instincts • patriarchy and matriarchy across the animal kingdom • and why the sexes are far more alike than they are different.

Lucy Cooke is the author of The Truth About Animals, which was short-listed for the Royal Society Prize, and the New York Times bestselling A Little Book of Sloth. She is a National Geographic explorer, TED talker, and award-winning documentary filmmaker with a master's degree in zoology from Oxford University. She lives in Hastings, England.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You're listening to the Michael Sherman Show

0:20.0

everyone, it's Michael Schurmer again for another edition of the Michael Schurmer Show brought to you by

0:22.0

Wondrium. Wondrium is a series of college-level audio and video courses and

0:26.4

documentaries produced and distributed by the teaching company. In addition to that,

0:31.1

they have tutorials, long-form courses, how-to lessons, travel logs, and much more.

0:38.6

Let me just give you an example of how this works.

0:40.4

It's a subscription service, you go to one dream.

0:43.0

and if you do it through this show, one dream.com

0:47.2

slash shirmer, you get a free trial

0:50.9

plus 20% off the annual subscription fee and why would you not want to

0:55.0

subscribe because it's a great source of content consumption while you're doing

1:00.6

other things. So just for fun, I just opened up the category of history,

1:06.4

just to give you some idea of the kind of different courses they have. Here's one called

1:11.8

the Black Death. Even Tut got the blues, the Middle Ages, England. That's a pretty big subject.

1:19.0

Let's see, Charlemagne, the Mede cheese, oh history and archaeology the Bible that should be a good one

1:27.5

history of England of course the pity of war poets at the front. Modern history, African history, the life of crazy horse. That's a,

1:40.0

oop, that's a documentary. Okay, well anyway, you get the idea idea so you just scroll through there there's just

1:45.0

hundreds literally just hundreds of things to pick from you can go through them sequentially

1:49.5

you get bored try different courses you can always go back.

1:52.8

It keeps track of where you are in the middle of one of those lectures,

1:56.4

and it's a great deal, so check it out.

1:58.6

It's Wundrium.com slash Schurmer

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.