Introduction

This website is a place to discuss our shared human heritage, our human nature. What can science, history, and the humanities teach us about human nature? This website is a hub that engages a variety of perspectives on human nature. It is a place to add your own thoughts to the discussion. It is our hope that when we have a more conscious awareness of the constructive and destructive tendencies that we all share that we will have a greater ability to choose behaviors and utilize social structures that will allow us to live together in a more healthy way. Below you will find “featured content” that is intended to support study and dialog around the topic of human nature. Use the “join the discussion” buttons to add your thoughts and ideas.

Featured Content
Human Nature Questions

Here are a few of our foundational questions:

  1. Can we identify a set of shared tendencies/behaviors/traits that all/most humans share across time and culture?
  2. How do our shared human qualities affect the way that we interact with each other?
  3. How does the concept of human nature apply to who we are as individuals?
  4. How can human nature be distinguished from animal nature?
  5. To what degree can we attribute our behavior to inherent biological or external cultural factors?

Click “Join Discussion” to add your thoughts to the discussion board. Kindly include a reference to the question you are addressing or add a question of your own.

Human Nature Bytes 
What is Human Nature and Why is it important?
Featured Web Links
Featured Video Links

Robert Sapolsky

Robert Sapolsky is a professor of Biology and Neuroscience at Stanford University. Sapolsky is able to detail many of the biological structures and processes that influence/determine our behavior.

Does Evolution Explain Human Nature?

A Panel Discussion on the topic of Human Nature in the context of evolution, including discussion of natural selection, altruism and other issues.

Corey S. Powell, Editor and Chief of Discover Magazine, Kenneth Miller, Professor of Biology at Brown University, Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology Yale University, and David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghampton University, discuss how we got to be the way we are.

Contemporary Issues and Human Nature

Crime and Human Nature?

Interview with Steven Pinker on Human Nature, Crime and Violence

A discussion of crime in contemporary society. Puts forward statistics on crime rates and relationship to human development. Promotes Pinker’s Book “The Better Angels of our Nature”

Featured Books and Articles

Featured

Can we get human nature right?

by

Iris Berent 

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6424-7702

Authors Info & Affiliations

Edited by Steven Pinker, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved August 19, 2021 (received for review May 5, 2021)

“Here, I demonstrate that reasoning about innateness is biased by the basic workings of the human mind.” Iris Berent

Featured Academic Programs

You Can Earn a Degree in Human Nature!

Contributors and Partners

We are looking for contributors and partners in the search for more understanding of our human nature and it’s implications for addressing the most pressing issues of our time. Dr. David Livingstone Smith and Dr. Subrena Smith are our first two contributors. If you would like to contribute your perspective to this site please contact humannatureforum@gmail.com

Founders Files

David B. Spaulding Thoughts on Human Nature

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