Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

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Bonjour.

Zadratu, niha and khaniwa.

No, you haven't stumbled into some hellish alternative universe where Eurovision has gone global

and we're waiting for the votes of the Indonesian jury.

I'm just using one of the markers that makes humans unique in the way that they group themselves off

from other members of their own species. And that tendency to group ourselves off, whether it's

through using a different language or the rather more extreme method of making war, that might

be coming to an end forever.

Well, that's the view of our speaker today, Mark Pagel.

Mark is head of the Evolution Lab at Reading University,

and author of scores of scholarly papers.

His book, Wired for Culture, draws on his research

to argue for a wider conclusion about society

that humans are made for cooperation

and not confrontation. And today, he's going to tell us why. So would you please welcome Mark Pagel.

Thank you very much, Ron, and thank you all for coming.

I don't think I can top that introduction.

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