This is Origin Stories, the Leaky Foundation podcast. I'm Meredith Johnson.

You can see some really spectacular examples of collective movement just by going outside.

If you've ever watched a bird flock as they move together, they almost look choreographed.

As one bird turns, the whole rest of the group turns.

You see a similar thing with fish schools.

The sudden flash of light as every fish apparently

altogether and in complete synchrony changes direction. People used to think movement like this

was evidence of telepathy. How else could these animals be moving so synchronously, making

the decision so quickly to change direction, to move together.

And of course, now we know that it's not telepathy that allows them to do this.

In fact, it's a really simple set of rules about how you interact with your neighbors

that allow a fish school or a bird flock to behave as this cohesive coordinated unit.

This is Margaret Crowfoot.

She's a scientist interested in how animals make group decisions

because it can answer a really important question about us.

When we think about human societies, I think we have a tendency to focus on a lot of the bad things,

the competition, the aggression on war, on conflict. And I think that

really misses what's so special about us as a species. We would not be a species spread over every

continent of the planet without our ability to work together to achieve collective goals.

This question of how humans are able to harness that cooperative potential to achieve these collective goods,

really is at the key to who we are as a species.

If you're thinking about the evolution of humans and interested in these questions about how we came to be the species that we are,

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