On Humans

Ilari Mäkelä
  • 4.6 (78)
  • EDUCATION
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Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we? On Humans features conversations with leading scholars about the human story, making new research about humanity more accessible to everyone and more meaningful to the big questions about who we are. In addition to regular episodes, the show now includes longer series on some of the greatest arcs in the journey of our species, covering everything from the evolution of apes to the making of the modern economy. https://onhumans.substack.com/about

  1. 6D AGO

    Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain? ~ Robert Allen

    Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial Revolution was not a European event. It was a British event. So why was the steam engine invented in Britain, and not France or Italy? Oxford professor Robert Allen has worked for decades trying to understand this question. Allen believes that to understand the path to modernity, we must forget grand generalisations about the West. Instead, he asks us to zoom in on two very specific dynamics that shaped the British economy in the 1700s: cheap fuel and expensive workers. Together, they jolted Britain into a path where ever more work was streamlined with the help of machines and fossil fuels — a path that we are still walking on, with AI and robotics simply the latest sightings on this long march of modernity. In this episode, we discuss the surprising revelations that led Allen to his theory. We discuss the reasons that British wages were high, and we discuss recent scholarship suggesting that this wasn’t the case–or at least, was not the cause for the Industrial Revolution. We also discuss the more humane side of wages, tracing the history of worker wellbeing from the Black Death to today.  As always in this series, we finish with our guests’ reflections on the future. LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find⁠ a summarised essay ⁠of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page:⁠ ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠⁠ EPISODE INFO Guest: Robert C. Allen (Nuffield College, University of Oxford and NYU Abu Dhabi)   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Ilari Mäkelä (⁠⁠⁠On Humans⁠⁠⁠) Contact: ⁠greatdivergencepod@gmail.com GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series, produced by Warwick University’s⁠ ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠⁠ in collaboration with⁠ ⁠On Humans.⁠⁠ The series searches for explanations to why Western Europe and North America overtook China and India as the richest regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Did science and the Enlightenment give Europe the edge? (Joel Mokyr)   3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | What happened in the East? China, Japan, and the other path to prosperity (Debin Ma) 5 | The big picture: Measuring the origins of the modern world (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED James E. Thorold Rogers | Kenneth Pomeranz | Joel Mokyr | Jane Humphries | Daniel Defoe | Bradford J. (Brad) DeLong | Branko Milanovic | Daron Acemogly | Oded Galor KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Industrial Revolution | Age of Inventions | Steam engine| European Miracle | British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective | Wage history | History of labour | Social history | Comparative development | Meiji Japan | Spinning Jenny | Industrial Policy | History of Technology | History of Inventions

    59 min

  2. APR 22

    Did Science and the Enlightenment Give Europe the Edge? ~ Joel Mokyr

    "The Industrial Revolution happened after the Scientific Revolution,” says Joel Mokyr, a 2025 Nobel laureate in Economics. “And that is probably not a coincidence.”  In this episode, Mokyr explores the many surprising ways in which science contributed to Europe’s economic rise. And it wasn’t just science. Europe’s culture was going through a broader change, with less emphasis on venerating the ancients and more desire to solve practical problems.  But how much did science actually contribute to the Industrial Revolution? And how much praise do Enlightenment figures deserve today? We discuss this and much more in this episode. As always in this series, we finish with our guests’ reflections on the challenges of our future. LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find a summarised essay of this conversation, with a bibliography, at our series page: ⁠https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/⁠ GREAT DIVERGENCE: THE MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD This episode is part of a series, produced by Warwick University’s ⁠CAGE Research Centre⁠ in collaboration with ⁠On Humans.⁠ The series searches for explanations to why Western Europe and North America overtook China and India as the richest regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Did science and the Enlightenment give Europe the edge? (Joel Mokyr)   3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | What happened in the East? China, Japan, and the power of the state (Debin Ma) 5 | What about the rest of the world? Measuring the origins of the modern economy (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED Joel Mokyr | Robert Lucas | David Hume | Isaac Newton | Antoine Lavoisier | Joseph Black | James Watt | John Robison | Josiah Wedgwood | Sadi Carnot | Margaret Jacob | Evangelista Torricelli | Galileo Galilei | Blaise Pascal | Otto von Guericke | Aristotle | Denis Diderot | William Harvey | Song Yingxing | Marco Polo | Zheng He | Louis XIV | Avner Greif | Guido Tabellini | Kenneth Pomeranz | Adam Smith | Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot | Montesquieu | Voltaire | Confucius | al-Ghazali | Ptolemy | Euclid | David Ricardo | Karl Marx | Hippocrates | Galen | Xi Jinping | Joseph Needham | Nigel Farage | Joseph Stalin | Trofim Lysenko | Robert Allen KEYWORDS Economics | History | Global Economic History | Intellectual History | Age of Inventions | Rise of the West | European Miracle | Enlightened Economy | Culture of Growth | Gift of Athena |Industrial Revolution | History of technology | History of inventions   INFO Guest: Joel Mokyr (⁠Northwestern University)⁠ Host: Ilari Mäkelä (⁠On Humans⁠) Contact: ⁠greatdivergencepod@gmail.com⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) via Pixabay.

    48 min

  3. APR 16

    Why the West? Colonies, Fossil Fuels, and Lessons from China ~ Kenneth Pomeranz

    Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval might of China and India? The term “great divergence” is increasingly used by historians who want to study this immense question, but who want to do it carefully, without falling into traditional East-West clichés.  This episode marks the beginning of a five-episode series exploring the state of this research, produced by the University of Warwick’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with the On Humans Podcast. In this opening episode, we meet Kenneth Pomeranz, the historian of China who coined the term "great divergence" in a field-defining book of the same name. We begin by discussing Pomeranz’s groundbreaking approach and the surprising answers that he arrived at. In the second half of the episode, we zoom out and place the rise of the West into the broader story about the history of humanity – a story Pomeranz divides into four parts, with the fifth one beginning right now. Enjoy! LINKS AND REFERENCES Do you prefer reading to listening? You can find summary essays, bibliographies, and much more at our series page: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/news/podcasts/ GREAT DIVERGENCE The making of the modern world This episode is part of a series, produced by Warwick University’s CAGE Research Centre in collaboration with On Humans. The series searches for explanations to why Western Europe and North America overtook China and India as the richest regions of the modern world. Guided by six expert guests, including a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in economics, we approach this topic with balance and breadth, exploring everything from colonialism and fossil fuels to science and technology.  1 | Why the West? Colonies, fossil fuels, and lessons from China (with Kenneth Pomeranz) 2 | Did science and the Enlightenment give Europe the edge? (Joel Mokyr)   3 | Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in Britain? (Robert Allen)   4 | What happened in the East? China, Japan, and the power of the state (Debin Ma) 5 | What about the rest of the world? Measuring the origins of the modern economy (Bishnupriya Gupta and Stephen Broadberry) NAMES MENTIONED Joel Mokyr | Brad DeLong | Arthur Wigley | Jan De Vries | Robert Allen | Simon Schama | Isaac Newton | Vasco da Gama | Jonathan Spence| Anthony Wrigley | Thomas Malthus | Nate Hagens | Charles Lockyer | Marshall Hodgson | Aristotle | Plato | Jared Diamond | Adam Smith |  KEYWORDS  Economics | History | Global Economic History | Malthusian Economics | Fossil Fuel Economics | Economics of Colonialism | Rise of the West | European Miracle | California School of Economics | Atlantic Trade | Industrial Revolution | Second Industrial Revolution | Historic living standards INFO Guest: Kenneth Pomeranz (University of Chicago) Host: Ilari Mäkelä (On Humans Podcast) Contact: greatdivergencepod@gmail.com Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠

    54 min

  4. APR 4 ·  BONUS

    Encore: Walking Towards the Human Condition (with Jeremy De Silva)

    Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned! Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives. A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human story, but the remarks have hardly done justice to the depth of the matter. Jeremy DeSilva did it justice. Enjoy!  ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES Humans are odd in many ways. But perhaps the oddest of our features is our upright posture. We walk on two legs. And we are the only mammal to do so.  So why do we walk upright? And why does it matter?  Jeremy DeSilva is a fossil expert and a professor of paleoanthropology at Dartmouth College. He is also the author of a remarkable book, aptly titled First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human DeSilva’s treatment of the subject is sweeping: while tracing the journey of human posture, he draws remarkable links between bipedalism and many facets of the human condition, from difficult births to complex language and from lower back pains to the beauty of friendships. In this episode, we talk about questions such as: What Darwin got right and wrong about the role of walking in human evolution When and why did we start walking upright?Why the common picture of human evolution is wrong - and what would be a better pictureWhy walking makes us fragileHow our ancestors survived bone fractures - and why this is a big deal Why is human birth so difficultWhy walking is so good for us: introducing the “myokines”What studying the human journey has taught DeSilva about our species_________ Please consider becoming a supporter of On Humans. Even small monthly donations can make a huge impact on the long-term sustainability of the program. Visit: ⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans ⁠⁠ _________ Names mentioned Charles Darwin / Ian Tattersall / Donald Johanson / Mary Leakey / Sherwood Washburn / Richard Wrangham (ep 21) / Kristen Hawkes (ep 6) / Holly Dunsworth / Daniel Lieberman  Mentioned hominin species Sahelanthropus / Ardipithecus / Australopithecus (e.g. Lucy) / Homo habilis / Homo erectus / Homo sapiens Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠

    1h 23m

  5. MAR 7

    Where Did Humans Evolve? Gazing at the Changing Nature of the Garden of Eden ~ Denise Su

    Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like?  To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions made by paleo-artists. Not a bad start. But what if we move the lens and zoom into their surroundings? What was the scientific “Garden of Eden” like? Was it a lush forest, a dry savanna, or an icy cave? And what can the answer tell us about human nature more broadly? Denise Su is a world-leading expert on these questions. A paleoecologist at Arizona State University’s Institute of Human Origins, she uses ever-more imaginative ways to get a glimpse into the nature and the weather that set the stage for the human story. In this episode, we focus on two kinds of “changes” in the ecology of human evolution: both the actual climate change that drummed the beat of human origins, and the theoretical changes in the views of scientists thinking about these topics. Indeed, this episode digs deep into one of the hotly contested questions about the reasons why humans evolved: "the savanna hypothesis". According to the savanna hypothesis, our naked, upright species evolved because African forests were shrinking and dry savannas emerged instead. Other apes stayed in the shrinking forests, but our brave ancestors took the shot, conquering the vast flatlands. As they did so, they started standing upright to better walk on the savanna and lost their fur, to sweat away the heat of the scorching sun. I have told versions of this story on the show, and so have many senior guests. Yet even a brief Google search will give you plenty of critics telling that the savanna hypothesis is nothing but a convenient myth.⁠ Articles by Denise Su⁠ are often included in the evidence. So what’s going on? Listen to the episode to find out! TIMELINE  Last common ancestor with humans and chimpanzees: 6–7 million years ago Ardipithecus ramidus: 4.5–4.2 million years ago Australopithecus anamnesis: 4.2–3.8 million years ago Austrolopithecus afarensis (e.g. Lucy): 3.9–2.9 million years ago Australopithecus deyiremeda: 3.5–3.3 million years ago Earliest Homo: about 2.8 million years ago Homo erectus: 1.9 million–112,000 years ago Homo sapiens: 300,000 years ago till present  FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected so far. However, timing estimates and species names are still debated. Furthermore, the “hours” in the metaphorical clock can shift a fair amount based on the “midnight”: our last common ancestor with chimpanzees lived 6 to 7 million years ago, with some estimates pushing the date as far as 8 million. In the episode, our clock is tuned to 6 million years ago.  If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below. LINKS Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Articles & newsletter: OnHumans/Substack.com Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠ KEY WORDS anthropology | archaeology | paleontology | human origins | human behavioural ecology | savanna hypothesis | paleolithic | paleoecology | hominid fossils | carbon isotopes C3/C4 | human evolution | human biology | climate change | human futures

    54 min

  6. FEB 10

    The Original Affluent Society? Lessons from 60-Years of "Man the Hunter" Research ~ Richard B. Lee

    What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable? In the lack of a time machine, many anthropologists have sought answers from studying the few hunter-gatherer communities that still exist today. In 1966, several leading names in the field were invited to present their results at a symposium at the University of Chicago. This “Man the Hunter” conference became a landmark event, but what exactly were the results? And have they stood the test of time?  To mark the 60th anniversary of the "Man the Hunter" symposium, On Humans is glad to share the first-ever long-form podcast with the legendary anthropologist and co-organiser of the symposium, Richard B. Lee. We discuss the legacy of the conference, Lee’s own experiences living with hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari, and his reflections on what we do and do not know about the ancient lifeways of hunter-gatherers. As we do so, we also discuss various controversies and mysteries, from women's roles to Native American farmers, and from archaeological black holes toThe Dawn of Everything. Enjoy! FACT-CHECKING No factual errors have been detected so far. If you see an error, you can get in touch using the form below. LINKS Support: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/OnHumans⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get in touch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://forms.gle/h5wcmefuwvD6asos8⁠⁠⁠ Music by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin_Music) ⁠via Pixabay.⁠ MENTIONS The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race (Jared Diamond) https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race-12157 The Original Affluent Society (Marshall Sahlins) https://www.uvm.edu/~jdericks/EE/Sahlins-Original_Affluent_Society.pdf For my previous coverage on “woman the hunter” controversies, see “Is Man the Hunter Dead” and my interviews with Cara Ocobock and Katie Starkweather, all available here: ⁠https://onhumans.substack.com/p/is-man-the-hunter-dead⁠ For Richard Lee's own comments on the controversy, see his interview with Vivek Venkataraman ⁠https://osf.io/x7ar3_v1/ Names: Richard B. Lee | James Suzman | Marshall Sahlins | David Graeber | David Wengrow | Jared Diamond | Sarah Blaffer Hrdy | Jerome Lewis | Colin Turnbull | James Woodburn | Eleanor Leacock | Louis Henry Morgan | Karl Marx | George Armelagos | Irvin DeVore | Sherwood Washburn | Jay Desmond Clark | Harriet Rosenberg | Lawrence K. Marshall | Elizabeth Marshall | John Marshall | Greta Thunberg | Vivek Venkataraman Ethnic groups: San | Ju/’hoansi | !Kung | Khoisan | Khoikhoi | “Bushmen” | “Hottentots” | First Nations | Tlingit | Haida | Inuit | Australian Aboriginal peoples | Bayaka| Batek | Huron-Wendat | Iroquois | Six Nations | Plains Indians | Hopi | Navajo | Cherokee KEY WORDS anthropology | archaeology | ethnography | human origins | human behavioural ecology | hunter-gatherers | paleolithic | neolithic transition | original affluent society | Kalahari Desert | Botswana | Namibia | paleogenetics | gathering vs hunting | gender roles | women hunting | egalitarianism | origins of hierarchy | surplus | food storage | salmon economies | Northwest Coast hunter-gatherers | archaeology of early farmers | bioarchaeology | stature/height decline | teeth health | disease burden | zoonoses | cross-species infection | Neolithic fertility increase | population pressure and “intensification” | chiefdoms | states | empires | ecology vs culture debate | materialist vs idealist | concentration–dispersion | colonialism | exploitation | land rights | climate change | human futures

    59 min

  7. JAN 21 ·  BONUS

    What Can Shamans Teach Us About Religion? | Many Minds with Manvir Singh

    The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told. Or so argues anthropologist Manvir Singh in his book, Shamanism: The Timeless Religion.   Singh’s work is fascinating in its capacity to link the exocit with the familiar, showing how rainforest rituals are not so far removed from urban modernity as we might think. Today, I will have the rare chance to enjoy Singh's insights together with you, as a listener. The hard work will be done by Kensy Cooperider, the host of the Many Minds Podcast. Many Minds is one of my own go-to shows and has a lot to recommend for it. Just like On Humans, it breaks down complex scientific concepts about humanity into easy-to-follow yet in-depth conversations. Yet unlike On Humans, it has insanely well-referenced show notes! Just check this one out. Kensy and I had a beachside chat this November and decided it would be good to introduce ourselves to each other's audiences. So here we go! LINKS Many Minds: https://disi.org/manyminds/ Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute: https://disi.org/ Episode page: https://disi.org/the-shaman-with-a-thousand-faces/ Manvir Singh: https://www.manvir.org/ KEYWORDS Anthropology | Psychology | Religion | Cross-cultural study | Abrahamic religions | Neo-shamanism | Human universals |

    1h 20m

  8. JAN 10 ·  BONUS

    The Origins of Humankind: Where Do We Really Come From?

    Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one fast-paced dive through deep time. By mixing highlights from the original interviews with fresh narration, this episode offers a captivating journey through many of the great topics around human origins, such as: Who were the first primates The role of fruits, snakes, and predators The human solution to dangerHow to grow a human brain?What did our ancestors eat?Effects of our upright posture Origins of music & language How Homo sapiens took over the worldEnjoy! LINKS For the original five-hour experience, see: OnHumans.Substack.com/Origins For a shorter series on ancient DNA: see OnHumans.Substack.com/DNA Support: Patreon.com/OnHumans The series was produced together with CARTA (UCSD & Salk Institute). For past recordings of CARTA symposia on human origins, see: Carta.Anthropogeny.org/Symposia KEYWORDS Human evolution | Human origins | Science | Biology | Paleoanthropology | Anthropology | Archaeology | Fossils | aDNA | History of life | Life history | Dinosaurs | Primates | Apes | Hominins | Homo sapiens | Evolution of language | Evolution of music | Brain evolution | Paleoneurology | Neanderthals | Denisovans | Neolithic Revolution | Spread of agriculture | Human destiny

    28 min
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About

Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we? On Humans features conversations with leading scholars about the human story, making new research about humanity more accessible to everyone and more meaningful to the big questions about who we are. In addition to regular episodes, the show now includes longer series on some of the greatest arcs in the journey of our species, covering everything from the evolution of apes to the making of the modern economy. https://onhumans.substack.com/about

Information

  • Creator
    Ilari Mäkelä
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    106
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ilari Mäkelä
  • Show Website
    On Humans

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