Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals

Are humans that different from animals? Animals fall in love, establish rules for fair play, exchange valued goods and services, hold "funerals" for fallen comrades, deploy sex as a weapon, and communicate with one another using rich vocabularies. In this lecture, Professor Lents marshals evidence from psychology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, and ethology to drive home the truth that we are distinguished from animals only in degree, not in kind.

Nathan H. Lents is Professor of Molecular Biology and director of the Macaulay Honors College at John Jay College of the City University of New York. He also blogs for Psychology Today and maintains The Human Evolution Blog.