The Social Leap; How We Evolved From Tree Swinging to Human Being - William Von Hippel - #041

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. This week, I'm sitting down with William Von Hippel, who is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. His work's been covered in The Australian, New York Times, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Time Magazine and The Sydney Morning Herald, amongst many other publications. And on top of that, William Von Hippel sounds like a baron from Medieval Times, which is, it's the sickest name ever. So, I first came across Bill's work when I heard him on Joe Rogan's podcast a couple of weeks ago, and I was absolutely fascinated. Very fortunately, we've managed to find a slot in Bill's book tour, which he's currently undergoing in America, and I managed to sit down with him to go through his new book, The Social Leap, The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From and What Makes Us Happy. If you have ever wondered about how great apes in trees became bipedal beings out on the plains and then evolved into the humans that you see before you today, this podcast is really for you. There's a beautiful story element and a narrative behind what Bill talks about. Plus, there's loads of implications for how we operate today. Again, the same as with my podcast I did with Professor Robin Hanson, The Elephant in the Brain. Why we are the way we are nowadays is a lot due to the environment that we evolved in. But in other news, I have got some messages about why there wasn't a podcast up on audio platforms last week. And if you do not follow me on social media, you may not know why. However, we did another YouTube exclusive, What It's Really Like, starring on Take Me Out. After the What It's Really Like on Love Island podcast, we decided to double down. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sure enough, the podcast has taken off really quickly and it's been covered by some of the UK press, which is always good news. Despite them misquoting me and one of them misspelling my name, but whatever, it's fine. But we're back on a schedule. I've got Jonny and Yusuf coming up very, very soon to do some special edition Christmas podcasts. I've also got the fattest, thickest, longest section of recording that I've ever had to do in the buildup to Christmas. So you may even get to a week over the Christmas holidays, but don't hold me to it. In the meantime, we're going to find out why we are the way we are and where we came from. Oh yeah, PS. The first minute and a half might sound slightly different to normal. I was still fighting with Skype at this point, but don't worry, I was victorious. Normal audio service is resumed after a couple of minutes.
Professor William Von Hippel, how are you today?

**William Von Hippel** (2:57)
Good, very happy to be here.

**Chris Williamson** (2:59)
Very happy to have you on. It's been a technological catastrophe so far, but it would appear that we've managed to tame all of the electronics that we're using to get this call to work, which I'm really, really happy about, so thank you for that.

**William Von Hippel** (3:13)
Oh, totally my pleasure, I've got high hopes.

**Chris Williamson** (3:16)
So, The Social Leap, you are currently on your book tour, that's right.

**William Von Hippel** (3:20)
That's right.

**Chris Williamson** (3:21)
Amazing. So, The Social Leap, what is it?

**William Von Hippel** (3:25)
So, that's the term I use for the kind of solution that our ancestors came to when they left the rainforest and were forced to move to the savanna. And so, you know, here they were, these sort of chimp-like creatures who were really at the top of the food chain when they were in the canopy, but were very vulnerable on the ground. And so, how did they solve that problem? Well, I think it took a few million years of sort of skulking around the edge of the savanna, but eventually, and I believe by the time we got to Australopithecus, they had learned to cooperate and band together in their mutual defense. And so, I call this the leap from the trees to the savanna and then this increasing sociality that came with that leap, and that in fact, I believe, started off our entire evolutionary process that brought us to where we are now. That's what I call the social leap.

**Chris Williamson** (4:13)
Amazing. What was the process of researching the book? Before we get into it, what was the...

**William Von Hippel** (4:19)
Sure.

**Chris Williamson** (4:19)
Is it a lot of deductive reasoning? Is it analysis of...