In this episode, Harvard primatologist Christine Webb challenges one of our deepest beliefs: that humans stand apart from the rest of nature. She traces the roots of human exceptionalism from Aristotle and Descartes to modern science, and explains why we still cling to hierarchies of intelligence.

While most critiques of human exceptionalism focus on our moral obligation toward other species, Webb argues that they overlook what humanity stands to gain by letting go of its illusions of uniqueness and superiority.

Christine Webb is a primatologist at Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, with expertise in social behavior, cognition, and emotion. Her new book is The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why it Matters.

Are we entering a Fifth Great Awakening—a cultural swing back toward religion?

An increasing number of books and articles are calling for a religious revival.
“We need religion to keep our society functioning.”
“People need meaning.”

Michael Shermer responds to and revisits the historical waves of religious fervor that shaped American life. He also asks what today’s renewed interest in faith, spirituality, and meaning says about our culture.

Featuring commentary on new books by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Charles Murray, and a preview of Helen Pluckrose’s new article for Skeptic.

Pulitzer-winner Caroline Fraser maps the lives and crimes of Ted Bundy and his infamous peers—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, and even Charles Manson—and explores an intriguing hypothesis: might environmental factors have played a role in the rise of serial killers in the 1970s and ’80s?

Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, and London Review of Books, among other publications. Her new book is Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers.