How the Mind and Culture Evolve with Steve Stewart-Williams

“It’s gonna be Okay.” — Steve Stewart-Williams

Today I’m delighted to have Steve Stewart-Williams on the podcast. Dr. Stewart-Williams is a New Zealander who moved to Canada, then to Wales, and then to Malaysia, where he is now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His first book, Darwin, God, and the Meaning of Life, was published in 2010 and his latest book is The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve.

In this episode we cover the following topics:

What would the human species look like from the perspective of an alien?
Are humans just evolved fish?
How far does evolutionary psychology take us in understanding human nature?
What are some common myths about the evolutionary process?
How we can be evolutionary “losers” and still be human success stories
The distinction between altruism and selfishness
Why the evolutionary psychology perspective is not enough to understand human nature
How culture evolved among humans
The link between human creativity and cultural evolution
The potential human conflict between passing on genes vs. passing on memes
How culture can amplify our nature
Steve answers questions from Twitter

About the guest

Steve Stewart

Podcast Guest

Steve Stewart-Williams is an evolutionary psychologist and associate professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. He is the author of The Ape That Understood the Universe and Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life.

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How the Mind and Culture Evolve with Steve Stewart-Williams

Steve Stewart

11 years ofhuman possibility

11 years of
human possibility