Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals

SF Atheists are pleased to welcome Professor Nathan H. Lents to discuss his new book, 'Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals'. Are humans that different from other animals? They also 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 'Not So Different', Lents argues that the same evolutionary forces of cooperation and competition have shaped us all. He marshals evidence from psychology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology, and ethology to drive home the truth that we are distinguished from other animals only in degree, not in kind.

Nathan H. Lents is professor of molecular biology and director of the biology and cell and molecular biology programs at John Jay College of the City University of New York. He is on the editorial board of The Journal of Phylogenetics and Evolutionary Biology and maintains The Human Evolution Blog.

Some books will be available for sale.