floor for questions from you all as well. so we'll keep this fairly light, but i think just a start, one of the things that i was magazine is you've written over 25 books now. the majority of those having to do a science and science have it. so at the question, why do you put all this effort into general science book and science information for the general layout? >> i enjoy writing. i am a southerner. we tell stories. i mean, we love telling stories. i write easily and i also am in subjects of science. i have a broad interest. i also have the ambitions and move of biology, particularly evolutionary biology, which is at the outer fringe of the national scientists in the direction of the social scientist and humanities to move that closer to the other places of learning and see if we tell ourselves the colloquy across the ranches and sent him that hasn't been achieved. i've always had the ambition. >> so how close do you think eucom? >> i think we're beginning to do it. by my efforts were beginning to get to a biological science and particularly in that direction of the brain and study says evolution and even the studies of neurobiology and i put heaviest emphasis in this book. >> so that severely heaviest asberry from where we all come from to the idea of moral sense. sort of very big topics. >> they are the topics. >> at the heart of most of this is evolution. i want to know what is your one sentence definition? on evolution? >> well, it has like most heavily used words in the language, particularly english, several meanings according to context. there's also something as any radical change occurs from one state to the next. and in biology, it means a genetic change in a species or population that leads from one state to the other, whether or not it is a gap to and we believe it's practically biology of natural practical systems and the natural system and therefore is adapt to. but in the tech of definition of a different change in the frequency of genes within a population. >> so what do you think the major points are in terms of the general public would be? is a word that's been used in a lot of different contacts and a lot of different ways. if it's broken into general language. >> i would ea think this view held by everyone except from analysts. [laughter] >> all right. so certainly in your new book, you have taken on issues or put forward a position that certainly has engenders a nice fonts yet again in terms of your approach to looking at where the voucher comes from. >> it's always been one of the big questions, but since my life, my research life has been primarily the social insight, which are the most advanced -- have the most advanced social system. granted, all drawn by instinct than a nonhuman animal. and then because my interest spread to humans when i set up the discipline of sociology in 1971, i had to include humans and took a lot of heat from that, so my interest in the humans had to increase. i had to take a greater increased. nic for reasons aforementioned that we are getting close and that could be probably the most exciting intellectual development of this country is to see a continuity call, a mutual understanding oppressors. then i just a strawman to it. i'm interested in evolution as well and the emerging story of human evolution. especially now we can begin to attach it to changes in behavior, leading to want to take what i know about social and pay him about what happened when they achieve this world conquering state in a tiny number of species reach what we call a new sociology, e.u. sociology, which mainstream sociology and it's just us producing inside a society that has the vision of labor. persists over at the multiple generations raised yon, cooperatively and has a division of labor, which basically to some degree are now offering. i've discovered looking, i invite colleagues that something like -- let's rounded off a little bit, and the history of life that new sociology has been reached. it's a very rare condition and it is very slow in coming. so up until about 250 million years ago there is not a single case, even though no lerch population and insects of all kinds and then when they got in the age where there is nothing we could see any sign-up for a good long while, we got things i in good time, when they appeared, these writer x, when they appeared, these writer x, when they appeared, these writer x took over the world. they a lot outweigh leverage in most habitat, all based on the lan. they outweighed 74 to one. in the fall of the vast insect mass, the answer loan can't even though they only have a tiny fraction of the species, about only one third. that's ecological dominance. and of course we all know what sapiens are like. it's the first big animal social species. and i go into it now later. but the astonishing fact they have not noticed an answer to the puzzle they have not considered, the rarity of a prolonged time it took to appear, in addition to never asking that question, they never looked at how it happened. and arguments about the theories of genetics of old truism that agrees, that was overlooked. i decided to simply look and call attention which has been traced through social issues are not just in insects, but it happens always the same way in the same time, no exception we are whereas in its consisted -- evolution is actually in the real sense that each side in the confluence of what is going to evolve, what is there in a particular environment in which the evolution occurs. so they all went the same, rather typical way to follow, a rare route to one point were solitary individuals, still solitary or small group which was very built to last, and expensive mast which of the solitary female defendants in which she were another little group goes for an fine food and brings it to the master feed the young progressively until they grow up and are ready to disperse. when you reach that stage, every case, no exception, with every small step you can go to social society and that is what happened. so it comes to the question when i saw that and i thought that was going to investigate the use of theology and all truism in the animal kingdom than, then i took a very close look at the evolution of humanity and an enormous amount has come out. in the last 10 to 20 years about the evolution of the human mind, all of my reference is -- virtually all of them are primarily peer-reviewed literature who actually did the research. i'll tell you i'm going on much too long. i know this is supposed to be a conversation, but this is what you said. [laughter] you have a harvard professor and even worse when you have a professor emeritus and you give them an audience. [laughter] [applause] i don't know the meaning of that applause. [laughter] is just going to conclude i suppose. it happened about three to 3 million years ago. it happened in a group of rvg ancestors, probably also remains that there is evidence that that one line out of all of these vegetarian, that was the one that started hunting two k. unique in that it to bone structure against change and by the time home or at this comes along, they were making capsize -- permit long-term capsize going down in bringing in 19 and analyzing because at that point, 2 million years ago, all the pre-humans had rants about the size of a champ, only slightly larger. it has been unremarkable. so what that moment, society falls precipitously. he goes to the president 1000 permits you to thousand, 1205 would appear that humans were quite persistent with the rule of reaching new sociology and it didn't sculpture -- advanced society, quite distinct with animal kingdoms and of course we were different and we developed culture along the way. our culture very much influenced by the instincts and posner prehuman. >> so in the picture you lay out commie talk about this idea of building a nest in this idea of the fire, planning campsite and technology in a sense is the precursor to her i needed step to this other larger loop social. >> you know commissions have culture. they have technology. but they also have 400 cubic centimeters of brain only. when different ranges of chimps are being studied, in different localities in congo and so on, they have different local populations had to behaviors that they pass on. they are very clearly cultural matters. one uses digging tools, animals or sticks to pick up food. others make tools to fish for termites. and found slain. it's interesting. the chimps just want to do so badly, but they just don't have all the apparatus. [laughter] >> said the approach of the air you put forward, there is a fair amount to a concern, consternation on some scientists about this direction is going to change the direction. where do you see this coming from quite >> what you mean mean? where we going? >> when he published the book there is a fair amount of controversy. >> i'll review that where delectation. for 1964, a young scientist named bill hamilton in england put together selection theory, which actually came from an early genesis naming the best history now. and what he proposed was that advanced societies like the ones i've just been describing originate when you have a close group of individuals, a tight little group without much motivation. that group has individuals that are closely related to one another. this that are closely related to one another are siblings. uncles, and, that sort of thing, collaterally closely related. not direct off strain. that's why the individual selection is hammered out in fast details. that's the usual thing. well, if there were cooperation that could be done by was all touristic among these close relatives, then they still wouldn't be losing their genes because they could have done -- they have equal identical genes, that they are protected. so the chain is protecting the gene. so they can basically in groups of 10, close can get together in this view and cooperate because they have the use. basically that's it. i bought it when i first published sociobiology, the introductions to it. it seemed quite reasonable at that time and to this very subject that as a matter of fact. it also had one powerful piece of evidence. that was when i was getting too technical about it, he seemed to be limited. new sociology seemed to say for termites were limited mostly to the order of the inside. they had a map at the determination, such the sisters are more closely related to one another in terms of the genes they share then or even and daughters. so it just works out that way. and this appeal appear to hamilton as a possible explanation of why at that time most of these new social societies were among those insects that have that. sisters are closely related to each other, to the mom, the relatives, sisters get together to form a society. it's such a pity. [laughter] because what happened is even though i championed it, that connection collapsed when more and more found socials that did not pass that to kill your determination, so quietly the people who believed for this sign -- you should do that. that evidence against them. it is not true. i saw a lot more and i won't go into detail about five years if i started publishing a series of paper in vain look, this isn't looking very well, but we better correct this. look at the evidence here and be equally well that's your going to do with a small group of it to see if who're using it in teaching it. which are calling equally well as explained by individual levels or group selection. when intense selection can and it out. it was thrown out as a possible mechanism for creating all touristic. and now it's wrong. so, a little warning when they're not paid much attention until i started the whole thing with hamilton. and so at some point i decided i would exit and do something more agreeable. but up until that time, i was the only person who is finding out what actually happened in by seeing what we know about. it just did not compute with the selection. at that point, two mathematicians approached me at harvard, mathematicians of the first rank. a prodigy named coaching at tornado, which i describe apart just a little earlier, who was the darling of the harvard math department. she had one deed not olympia three years ago and so on. so they came to me and said, you know, we decided to look at this thing in the assumption mathematically as the formula for all of this is an election process and we have found it has no solid foundation. in fact, it's wrong mathematically. no one had ever done that before. why? because is an extremely difficult mathematical problem. it didn't seem would be necessary to do it, but it turned out. but when i put the evidence that you got to put that group selection, then we got sent an entirely new open to. and i'm as where we are now. no supporter of the old theory, it happened 18 months after we made that move the nation magazine has actually ever addressed the scientific issues. that is the mathematical inaccuracy and also the better paradox of the nation. and that is where we are at the present time. i show in my new book that finally we have a series, an explanation of how it's originated in humans. a fifth what we know about human beings ever been done properly before. a survey at the present time. >> this use of group selection had individual selection and given quite a fair amount of explanatory comments and into the kinds of behavior. >> it shows you what's been going on. just as some historical background, it garwin thought that ants could be the death of his theory while he was writing the origin of species. so he himself said he couldn't explain how it is that worker and, which don't have offspring could evolve into these elaborate forms. you know, they were just the workers. he was in trouble. he thought about that a long time. a famous story about him, which i'll introduce another who do have the conversations were having before you move on to another and more interesting subject, darin was sitting in his garden thinking. he walked each day and thought about these things. and he was watching an ant hill, sitting in the garden and elderly retainer in dallas, a lady said, referring to charles of the profession novelists who lived an estate nearby said doesn't have something to pass his time. and anyways, darwin figured it out and basically what he figured out as the colony fan he did it again, but for humans. he said group versus group site, if i've got this right, results and what are features we think of his virtue, and divisiveness, helpful a cell on an essentially, that is where we are today. and i'll tell you what it is. i'll just give you a simple couple of formulation putting it. each is a simple fermentation first of all, here is the process. individual bubble selection based on parent taking care of offspring, having as many offspring as possible, proportionally represented in the next question. the intimate numbers of examples in the legislature. this usually referred to as williams selection. group selection is that the genes that are fixed have to do with interaction, how they communicate, how they cooperate, how well they bond together and how they act as a unit. so group versus group, does are quite different than the ones coming from the individual level selection as they are more likely to create what they call virtue. that is on her, morality. so here we have these two levels of selection. they are antagonistic because the filename and a hoop, selfish individuals beat all touristic individuals, but all touristic workgroups of all touristic individuals beat most selfish individuals. it's as simple as that. if mathematically sound. were going to work out a hole in the mathematical account of it and that is what it is. or to make it ultra simple, individual selection tends to produce what we call a thin, you know the selfishness and conniving and all of these infinite permutations make their readings so interesting. [laughter] and the group selection promotes virtue. and they are antagonistic. and this is the most important thing about it, about the human condition. i think it answers the question. we're close to answering the big question is why he brought in plug-in. the masterpieces labeled. well, were to become from? where are we and what are we going? said they were close to answering the questions. that's the answer is little disconcerting. it appears that the group selection at the driving force of this selection and that would make us human is a cause us to develop so quickly and it creates innate virtue and morality because that is antagonist than an individual level is underway within the genetic mix so i'll ever be because if we ever drove and were caught in this unstable, can dictate conviction is that it's very human and will always be conflicted to some degree if we went to -- when all the way -- is not a political speech. all the way to individual selection, then the society would dissolve. if we went all the way to group selection, then we would he come angelic robots. we would be -- we never can be any thing but conflicted. but when you think about it, this is a source of human creativity. what created this is a conflict -- causes conflict, makes us geniuses. in may this highly creative, but it also produced some internal conflict eventuated and society. there isn't any easy solution. that is the bottom line i would say two political scientists. the g hobbyist and those who train with perfect harmony on humanity was with helpful posts. and that is -- there is some perfect state. there's no perfect world government. bulges have to work same as always and this turmoil, internal kaleidoscope of feelings and intuitions and in her actions we have. you know, it may be true that since all of the two dozen times that we know of that base high-level and instinctive basis, we had a culture. they all came the same route. then maybe that's the way all of human intelligent life certainly exists. all of it has to come right away. and now for a change or have been saved them to let you talk. >> well, something you brought up her spirits are certainly in europe early career he did a lot about communication. what is your take on treating, safe again? >> you know, we really don't know where they are sa you knowt know where they are saving this? you have to read th3 >> you know, we really don't know where they are saving this? you have to read the op-ed page of "the new york times." i should mention that. articles, what passes for intellectuals and the united states are now writing the subjects of what is this doing to us? what is it doing a conversation, education. what is it doing to have the mind works? we don't know yet because we haven't been in this experiment yet. no one says twittering, of course kos conversation. because everything is so easy on google. you asked them a question, like who is the third roman emperor after cesar and that is impressive. but what is that doing it terms of the development of their mind and their creativity if they're not having long periods of time if that ever were the case to reflect and develop their own persona, their own worldview, their own ideas. we don't know where it's going. i mean, you could go to a much more -- much better informed, better educated and thoughtful liberal society. what do you think? >> i think it's coming one way or another. we must find out. i think it's fascinating to see the entire new language. >> we are now i think actually actually -- we've answered the first two questions. we answered the question, where do we come from? i think we're beginning to end their what are we now were about to find out where we're going. and i think knowing where we came from and what we are is very hopeful. in fact, i think it's necessary to have a hammered out consent is based on science and open constant discussion and i think were coming