Lee Berger: In the Footsteps of Eve

What It Takes®

Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2016

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lee Berger has made two extraordinary scientific breakthroughs that are transforming our understanding of human evolution. Berger is a trailblazing paleoanthropologist. His most recent discovery involved a dramatic expedition through a 7-inch tunnel, deep inside the chamber of a South African cave. On the floor were thousands of bones, belonging to an unknown species of human relative that Berger has named “Homo naledi.” Berger explains why he believes that Homo naledi was intentionally disposing of its dead (a practice thought to be exclusively human), and he discusses his lifelong passion for adventure. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2016

Transcript

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0:00.0	Madame, this child is gifted, and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
0:08.6	If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another
0:14.4	chance.
0:15.4	It all was so clear.
0:16.4	It was just like the picture started to form itself.
0:19.7	There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.
0:27.0	Every day I wake up and decide. Today I'm going to love my life.
0:34.0	Decide.
0:39.0	My advice is if they don't break your leg once when you go in that place stay out of there. And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for,
0:46.3	but boy you better not miss them.
0:51.6	These bones that we're finding are of individuals that lay somewhere in our deep family tree.
1:03.3	This is what it takes, a podcast about passion,
1:07.6	vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement.
1:12.1	I'm Alice Winkler and this is Lee Berger. He hunts for
1:17.3	human ancestors and is transforming our understanding of evolution.
1:23.0	Every single person is interested to know who their parents are,
1:28.0	who your grandparents are, who your great-grandparents are,
1:31.0	genealogy websites, and that work are hugely popular.
1:36.5	Why? The reason is, because every human being on this planet at some point realizes that the people who they descend from in the past
1:49.7	carry traits and behaviors that are now part of them.
1:54.0	And as we try to understand ourselves as humans, something only humans can do,
2:00.0	we explore our inner cells, We're looking for causality, reason. We want to know not only why we look physically like this, but often the more important why we behave like this.
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