This program is sponsored by the Covley Foundation based in Los Angeles, California.

The Covley Foundation is dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity.

I'm Alan Alda, and this is Clear and Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

We're the friendliest species of human that ever evolved, and it was a major advantage.

And the idea is that when we recognize it's only been 50,000 years, if that, that we've been alone on the planet as the only human.

And so we think that thinking about how our culture exploded in the last 50,000 years, points to friendliness.

Because when you can network lots of minds together, you have an explosion and an innovation, and you can have cultural ratcheting, increase in power and speed.

And so you can have a cultural being supercharged.

We call it survival of the friendliest because it's a particular kind of friendliness that we're talking about, kind of like a mama bear.

Where, you know, when is a mama bear most beautiful? It's when she's with her cobs and she's loving and kind, but that is also the moment when she's most dangerous.

That's husband and wife team Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods, whose collective experience with chimpanzees, bonobos, and dogs has led them to the radical idea that we humans are so human because we're so friendly.

They've written a book called Survival of the Friendliest, and in it they lay out their case in a very engaging way.

We talked about that, and a few other things, like who was clearly more Neanderthal, Brian or me.

This is so great to be talking with you today.

Alla was so happy to be with you.

Oh, thank you. What I love about this is you have a great answer to the question that I ask all the time.

Why is it that humans have this amazing capacity for both nurture and torture? What is it about us?

And you've both studied this and written brilliantly about it. What's the short answer to that?

I think the short answer is we're built for friendliness, but we're also built to turn that friendliness off when we feel threatened.

So do we want to do that?

Turn our friendliness off. No, we need more friendliness.

Right now. Right now, please.

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