The Power of Adaptability with Herman Pontzer

About This Episode

What’s the science of what makes humans special? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly explore how we evolved to be different from eachother, what’s up with Neanderthal DNA, and humanity’s superpower with Herman Pontzer, evolutionary anthropologist and author of Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Works and Why Biology Unites Us.

Is there such a thing as a textbook average human? Herman explains how biological diversity is not a dividing factor but an expression of our shared humanity. Are skin color and race scientifically meaningful? Why are we all “shape-shifters” biologically? Explore why cultural and biological inheritance together make us uniquely versatile in the animal kingdom, and where our individual differences come from. How many of them are adaptations versus random noise?

Learn how body shapes adapted to latitude, why high-altitude populations thrive where others struggle, and how Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA shaped modern humans. Did the gene that helps Himalayan people come from an extinct hominin?

The team examines whether modern life mismatches our evolutionary design. From heart disease to sedentary lifestyles, what do ancient bodies face in modern cities? Discover why natural selection needs individual mutation to work and how genetic diversity is what gives humanity our superpower.

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