WGBH Forum Network; George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness
Description:
Historian of science Oren Harman holds a conversation about his new book, The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness.Since the dawn of time man has contemplated the mystery of altruism, but it was Darwin who posed the question most starkly. From the selfless ant to the stinging bee to the man laying down his life for a stranger, evolution has yielded a goodness that in theory should never be.Set against the tale of 150 years of scientific attempts to explain kindness, The Price of Altruism tells for the first time the story of the eccentric American genius George Price (1922--1975), as he strives to answer evolution's greatest riddle. From the heights of the Manhattan Project to the inspired equation that explains altruism to the depths of homelessness and despair, Price's life embodies the paradoxes of Darwin's enigma. His tragic suicide in a squatter's flat, among the vagabonds to whom he gave all his possessions, provides the ultimate contemplation on the possibility of genuine benevolence.
