Herman Pontzer (on evolutionary anthropology)

Episode overview

Herman Pontzer (Adaptable: How Your Unique Body Works and Why Our Biology Unites Us) is an evolutionary anthropologist, author, and associate professor at Duke University. Herman joins the Armchair Expert to discuss growing up at the end of a dirt road in a house his dad built, unpacking the dark history of anthropometry, and the ewok chapter of human evolution. Herman and Dax talk about why the brain is the most expensive organ in the body, how the first full human skeleton found being named after a Beatles song, and why people burn more calories being anxious. Herman explains the hockey stick inflection point of intelligence when we began hunting and gathering, why research on early humans debunks the paleo diet, and the story of the guy that accidentally killed the world's oldest living organism.

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Short transcript highlights

These brief excerpts are navigation aids selected from different points in the transcript.

1. 0:00welcome welcome welcome so armchair expert I'm Herm and peran I'm joined by my Mom hi Mom hi son you're not going to
2. 1:02:07that's right so as people move north the balance shifts right so there's less light there's less UV there's less
3. 2:07:29it will tomorrow you'll be feeling 10 feet tall and bulletproof gigantopithecus all right love you by