Religion, Evolution and Self Ascendency: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt asks a simple, but difficult question: why do we search for self-transcendence? Why do we attempt to lose ourselves? In a tour through the science of evolution by group selection, he proposes a provocative answer.
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral. By understanding more about our moral roots, his hope is that we can learn to be civil and open-minded. His new book is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion."
Other Videos That May Interest You:
Award-Winning Teen-Age Science in Action
In 2011 three young women swept the top prizes of the first Google Science Fair. At TEDxWomen Lauren Hodge, Shree Bose and Naomi Shah described their extraordinary projects - and their route to a passion for science.Experience Life TV: Interview With Cindy Joseph
Hear from model and entrepreneur Cindy Joseph, creator of the Boom! by Cindy Joseph cosmetic line, and get her thoughts on the pro-age revolution.Splitscreen: A Love Story
Can two people who live on opposite sides of the world have anything in common? This is the story of two parallel lives, one in New York and one in Paris and the journey that will lead them together. Told simultaneously through the eyes of both characters.Geoffrey West: The Surprising Math of Cities and Corporations
Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.Frans de Waal: Moral Behavior in Animals
Empathy, cooperation, fairness and reciprocity -- caring about the well-being of others seems like a very human trait. But Frans de Waal shares some surprising videos of behavioral tests, on primates and other mammals, that show how many of these moral traits all of us share.
