Episode 17: Being Human - Speaking of Sex

Origin Stories

Meredith Johnson

Natural Sciences, Science, Life Sciences

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Humans are very verbal compared to other animals. We talk constantly, and our voices can signal many things beyond the meaning of our words. The human voice is also highly differentiated between the sexes.

In this live recording of our Being Human event in February 2016, Dr. David Puts explores how studying the human voice can be a good way to gain insight into human sexual selection.

Dr. Puts is an associate professor in the department of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the evolution and development of human sexuality and sex differences. He's especially interested in how sex hormones influence our psychology, behavior, and anatomy—and how these traits were shaped by sexual selection.

About Being Human

Being Human mixes short talks from great minds with fun hands-on experiments, drinks, conversation, and storytelling. Each month we explore different aspects of our evolution, our behavior, and the human experience.

Join us on July 28th for "Born and Evolved to Run" and learn about the evolution of our remarkable ability for long-distance running. Our speaker will be Dr. Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University.

Tickets are $10 and are available at Ticketfly.com.

Being Human is a joint initiative of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation.

Learn More

Puts Lab at Pennsylvania State University

Sponsors

The Being Human initiative of The Leakey Foundation and the Baumann Foundation. Dedicated to understanding modern life from an evolutionary perspective.

The Leakey Foundation

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson. This episode is another of our live talks from the Being Human event series.
0:23.5	This time, we're talking about sex differences and the human voice as a window into understanding
0:29.0	human sexual selection.
0:31.8	We humans are very verbal compared to other animals.
0:35.3	We talk all the time, and our voices can signal lots of things
0:39.0	beyond the meanings of the words we're saying.
0:41.5	But what can our voices tell us about our evolutionary history?
0:45.6	Our speaker is David Putz.
0:48.3	Dr. Putz is an associate professor
0:50.0	in the Department of Anthropology
0:51.6	at Pennsylvania State University,
0:53.9	and his research focuses
0:55.7	on the evolution and development of human sexuality and sex differences.
1:00.6	He's especially interested in how sex hormones influence our psychology, behavior, and anatomy,
1:06.3	and how these traits were shaped by sexual selection.
1:11.4	Here's David Putz, recorded live on stage at Public Works in San Francisco.
1:17.3	Hi there. Thank you very much. It's really great to be here. I can't really think of much I'd rather do
1:23.7	than talk about human evolution with some smart people, maybe a few adult libations
1:28.0	thrown in there.
1:30.0	So how many of you just show of hands, how many of you are interested in coming to a talk
1:35.1	about human evolution?
1:37.2	Raise your hand.
	...

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