This is an I-Hart podcast, guaranteed human.

Howdy, Extraordinaries?

Most of this episode is about social behavior and cooperation in animals, and in particular, human animals.

But towards the end, we talk a little bit about cases where humans and non-human animals have not gotten the love that they deserve early on in life,

and the implications of that for their behavior, which is a little bit hard to hear.

So just a heads up so you can decide if you want to listen to the last third of the episode or not.

Thanks.

Music last third of the episode or not. Thanks. Natural selection doesn't exactly sound like the kind of mechanism that would result

in a lot of cooperation and snugly social behavior. Let's imagine it. You take variation in some trait,

say differences in running speed, and link that trait to survival and reproduction. So imagine

that running speed determines who escapes from predators and then goes on to survive and have babies.

And if that trait is heritable, so if the babies of fast parents are fast themselves,

then you have all the ingredients necessary for natural selection.

Over time, you'd expect that fast individuals survive and become more common, while the slow individuals,

well, they get eaten.

That sounds kind of cutthroat.

Yet somehow, we've still ended up in a world where animals will call out to warn others of a nearby predator.

Even if calling out increases the risk that the

predator goes after the caller in particular. And honeybees will sting us to protect their hive

mates, even though stinging us will pull out their stinger and effectively disembow the bee.

They give their lives to protect their buddies living inside the hive.

So how did this seemingly brutal mechanism give rise to so much cooperation and helpful behavior?

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