Why sex, food, and shelter aren’t enough for Homo Sapiens | Agustín Fuentes

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What is the capacity for belief in humans, and how does it shape our lives and interactions with the world? According to Agustín Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University and author of Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being, the human capacity for belief is the most significant trait that sets us apart from other animals.

This capacity for belief, which importantly is not limited to religious belief, allows us to take our experiences and turn them into perceptions, ideologies, and lifestyles to which we can fully commit — thereby shaping our reality and the reality of future generations.

At its core, Fuentes explains, human belief is rooted in, and contingent on, our evolutionary history. Unlike other mammals, human infants are born with brains that are just 40% of their adult size. This extended childhood allows for constant social and environmental influence, which become the fabric of our being. Beliefs even influence our biological make-up, from our gut microbiome to our hormones.

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About Agustín Fuentes:

Agustín Fuentes, a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations. Earning his BA/BS in Anthropology and Zoology and his MA and PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley, he has conducted research across four continents, multiple species, and two-million years of human history. His current projects include exploring cooperation, creativity, and belief in human evolution, multispecies anthropologies, evolutionary theory and processes, and engaging race and racism. Fuentes’ books include Race, Monogamy, and other lies they told you: busting myths about human nature (U of California), The Creative Spark: how imagination made humans exceptional (Dutton), and Why We Believe: evolution and the human way of being (Yale).

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Biology’s unsolved chicken-or-egg problem: Where did life come from?

Why has every postwar generation since the 1950s become less religious?

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