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Hi, Augustine. How are you?

Hey, Bob. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. Let me introduce us. I'm Robert Wright. This is the right show, available on both streaming video and via audio podcast, rate and review us and so on.

You are Augustine Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton.

Yep.

And let me tell people how we came to be having this conversation.

It started with you starting something of a controversy, I guess, you could say.

You published, you seem to be judging by your facial reaction.

You're taking issue with that characterization.

Or maybe, well, we'll get into exactly what happened.

So you published in the journal science, probably the most esteemed scientific journal in the United States that's published in the United States, what's called an editorial.

So it's different from a scientific paper.

It's short.

It's kind of op-ed length.

It was about Charles Darwin and focused in

particular on his book, The Descent of Man. And here are a few quotes from your piece. You said the

dissent, quote, offers a racist and sexist view of humanity. It is, quote, often problematic, prejudice and injurious.

And you said that Darwin, you know, although he was a great scientist, he, quote,

should also be taught as an English man with injurious and unfounded prejudices that

warped his view of data and experience.

Now, this kicked up something of a fuss on Twitter.

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