February 16, 2024
Colloquium Topic: BEING HUMAN: How Our Biology Shaped World History
We are a wonder of evolution. Powerful yet dextrous, instinctive yet thoughtful, we are expert communicators and innovators. Our exceptional abilities have created the civilization we know today. But we’re also deeply flawed. Our bodies break, choke, and fail, whether we’re kings or peasants. Diseases thwart our boldest plans. Our psychological biases have been at the root of terrible decisions in both war and peacetime. This extraordinary contradiction is the essence of what it means to be human – the sum total of our frailties and our faculties. And history has played out in the balance between them. Now, for the first time, Lewis Dartnell tells our story through the lens of this unique, capricious, and fragile nature. He explores how our biology has shaped our relationships, our societies, our economies, and our wars, and how it continues to challenge and define our progress. Being Human is history made flesh. It will change the way you see the world.
Colloquium Speaker: Lewis Dartnell
Prof. Lewis Dartnell is a research scientist, presenter, and author based in London, UK. He graduated from Oxford University with a First Class degree in Biological Sciences and completed his PhD at University College London in 2007. He now holds the Professorship in Science Communication at the University of Westminster. His research is in the field of astrobiology and the search for microbial life on Mars. He has also held an STFC Science in Society Fellowship and is very active in delivering live events at schools and science festivals, working as a scientific consultant for the media, and has appeared in numerous TV documentaries and radio shows. He has won several awards for his science writing and outreach work and regularly freelances for newspapers and magazine articles. He has also published five books: THE KNOWLEDGE was the Sunday Times ‘New Thinking’ Book of the Year and an international bestseller, and ORIGINS: How the Earth Made Us is a Sunday Times top History book of 2019. BEING HUMAN: How our Biology Shaped World History was released on June 1, 2023.