The Fate of Nations: Why Ignoring Human Nature Dooms Politics
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.3 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 September 2025
⏱️ 103 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Science writer Nicholas Wade explains how human nature continues to shape—and sometimes destabilize—modern civilization, and argues that ignoring the effects of human nature on politics is one of society's greatest mistakes.
Drawing on anthropology, evolutionary biology, and history, Wade shows how deep-rooted traits not only shape the outcomes of certain political beliefs and systems, but also affect how people form families, religion, and social order.
Nicholas Wade has worked at Nature and Science, and, for many years, at The New York Times, where he was an editorial writer and science editor. He is the author of four books about recent human evolution. His latest is The Origin of Politics: How Evolution and Ideology Shape the Fate of Nations.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. So how do you find amazing candidates fast? |
| 0:07.8 | Simple. Just use Indeed. Stop wasting time with other job sites that aren't getting your post seen. |
| 0:14.4 | With Indeed's sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top getting in front of the right candidates fast. |
| 0:20.6 | And it works. According to Indeed |
| 0:22.8 | data, sponsor jobs get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones. Join the 3.5 million employers |
| 0:31.0 | worldwide who are hiring great talent with Indeed. Best part? No monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results. |
| 0:41.1 | There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show |
| 0:47.1 | will get a 100-pound sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash show. |
| 0:54.8 | Just go to Indeed.com slash show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. |
| 1:02.4 | Indeed.com slash show. Terms and conditions apply. |
| 1:10.3 | You're listening to the Michael Shermer Show. |
| 1:22.9 | All right, everybody, it's time for another episode of the Michael Shermer show. |
| 1:26.6 | My guest today is Nicholas Wade, the legendary science writer and scientist, born in Aylesbury, England, and educated at Eaton, and King's College, Cambridge, where he studied the natural sciences. |
| 1:39.4 | He worked at nature and science, two weekly scientific magazines, for the longest time, the most |
| 1:45.5 | prestigious of science magazines. And for many years, he was, of course, with the New York Times, |
| 1:50.4 | where I'm sure almost all of you have read something of his work over the years. He was an editorial |
| 1:55.7 | writer and science editor. He's the author of four books on recent human evolution. Before the dawn, |
| 2:03.6 | traces how people have evolved during the last 50,000 years. The faith instinct argues that |
| 2:09.5 | religious behavior evolved because of the many benefits religion brings to society. We'll |
| 2:14.7 | have to get into that a little bit. Let's see. A troublesome inheritance |
| 2:19.4 | discusses the biological basis for the emergence of human races. And the fourth volume of his |
| 2:24.6 | trilogy, I think there's an actual word for that, but I forget what it is. The origin of politics. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.