Cooking Up A New Theory Of Human Evolution

To answer what makes us human has long been a scientific quest. It’s one that Dr. Richard Wrangham has been wrestling with since the 1970’s, when he started his career, observing chimps with Dr. Jane Goodall. Then about 10 years ago, while sitting in front of his own fireplace, a theory of human evolution came to him. It’s one that he lays out in his new book: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. Richard Wrangham is the Ruth B. Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He joins The Takeaway with his take on human evolution.