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What Makes Us Human? – with Adam Rutherford

Artis Modus



The Royal Institution

We like to think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but are we really any more special than other animals?
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Humans are the slightest of twigs on a single family tree that encompasses four billion years, a lot of twists and turns, and a billion species. All of those organisms are rooted in a single origin, with a common code that underwrites our existence. This paradox – that our biology is indistinct from all life, yet we consider ourselves to be special – lies at the heart of who we are.

In an original and entertaining tour of life on Earth, Adam Rutherford will explore how many of the things once considered to be exclusively human are not: we are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, utilises fire, or has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. Evolution has, however, allowed us to develop our culture to a level of complexity that outstrips any other observed in nature.

Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/Qz1mvraetEU

Dr Adam Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. He has written and presented many award-winning series and programmes for the BBC, including the flagship weekly BBC Radio 4 programme Inside Science and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry with Dr Hannah Fry. He is the author of two previous books, Creation, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Prize, and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.

Our chair for the evening, Dr Hannah Fry, is an Associate Professor in the mathematics of cities from University College London. In her day job she uses mathematical models to study patterns in human behaviour, and has worked with governments, police forces, health analysts and supermarkets. Her TED talks have amassed millions of views and she has fronted television documentaries for the BBC and PBS; she also hosts the long-running science podcast, ‘The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry’ with the BBC.

This talk and Q&A was filmed in the Ri on 12 September 2018.

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31 thoughts on “What Makes Us Human? – with Adam Rutherford”

  1. Excellent and entertaining lecture. I normally lean more towards the physics and cosmology lectures but this one held my interest, even through the question and answer period. Thanks RI and Mr Rutherford.

  2. Unfortunately you can ask the same question about any species… e.g. what defines a cheetah, what defines a kangaroo, hawk… etc. etc. each of these have clear quality that stands out. Ours is intellect.

  10. It was a good over view of man. It did not highlight the qualities/behavior which make man a Human. women having child are called mother, one give all to care and equip the child for independent life. the other give berth and abandon the child. technically both are labeled mother. one is biological incubator and the other posses some of qualities making one human. it is applying of those qualities at all time for every one make one human. not just physiology of one. MG1

  11. Science is over-bearing On the other hand, humble and meek Spiritual processes, which no scientific instrument can measure, thank god, are a million times rarer than even a quark or a nano-second particle born of a proton-proton collision. Human mind and related mental capacities, which can be learnt and developed – can see the spiritual processes at work and feel the effect as absolute ecstacy and freedom. But science has swept everybody off their feet with artficial hi-tech junk, and nobody wants to learn spiritual science. Matter science has brain-washed people and they are now slaves of "Time" "Money" and "mathematics". Just talk to a teenager, who has been converted to a timid, matter-enslaved consumer.
    For more, go to: //@t and spend some time reading. Start thinking for yourself. You are a thinker!

  19. Surely cruelty is what sets us apart. The use of violence of various levels of sophistication concomitant with the awareness of the torment it causes another, and its pointlessness considering we are rarely in a position where we need to hurt another to survive, is sadly what defines us the most.

  22. I've never been able to properly understand the revelance of fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity and radial diffusivity of white matter (neurons) structure in the brain. But such features of white matter seem to have (speculated) links to a whole range of conditions from being transgender, to effects of child neglect, to psychopathy. One part of the brain – the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus – has been linked not only to language development (CNTNAP2 gene) but also the conditions I just described. ????

  27. One thing that is uniquely human is the ability of our observations to collapse the wave function in quantum physics. Just ponder what that tells us about the true nature of the reality in which we live.

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