Are We Alone for 05/18/09 - Why We Do What We Shoo Be Do Be Do

Are We Alone - Why We Do What We Shoo Be Do Be Do
We see a man laughing and we smile in response. Our heart goes out to the sad-looking woman on the train. Humans are empathetic creatures – we feel what others feel, even the emotions of strangers. And it may be due to brain cells that researchers have only recently discovered: mirror neurons. Find out how these mimicking cells help us survive cocktail parties, keep society humming, and even give rise to the concept of self.
Also, are humans born with a moral code? And, if human behavior is hard-wired – whatever becomes of free will?

Guests:

• Marc Hauser – Evolutionary psychologist and biologist at Harvard, author of Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong
  
  Take Marc’s Moral Sense Test
• Marco Iacoboni – Psychologist and neuroscientist at UCLA and the author of Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with Others
• Allen Stairs – Philosopher at the University of Maryland
• John-Dylan Haynes – Neuroscientist, Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Are We A Blog?, the companion blog to the radio show.