Dr. Richard Wrangham
Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology
Curator of Primate Behavioral Biology,
Harvard University

February 25th, 2010 at 7:00 pm in the Main Reading Room

From ape-like beings the size of chimpanzees, the species that created art and science and mastered the planet was born. The superior brain that characterizes man has its origins in our intelligent predecessor Homo erectus, who lived two million years ago. In the next step up the evolutionary ladder, Homo sapiens would carry on this highly adaptive characteristic and flourish unlike any other species. What made possible this incredible leap forward in brain power? Prevailing theories have for years emphasized man's ability to fashion tools or procure meat, but Dr. Richard Wrangham has brought forth a fascinating new theory that puts cooking - harnessing fire to change the composition of both vegetable and animal-based foods - at the center of human evolution.

In his new book, CATCHING FIRE: How Cooking Made Us Human, Wrangham convincingly lays out his groundbreaking explanation of human origins, which turns out to have profound implications for everything from nutrition and our assumptions about weight loss to gender roles.

The theory may be summarized as follows:

• Cooking, by breaking food down into more absorbable parts, unleashes more energy from the same amount of food.

• This ability to derive more calories from the same amount of food made a better energy and nutrient supply achievable for our ancestors, making possible the development of a larger, stronger, more energy and nutrient-demanding brain.

• The human body was transformed, from jaw size and structure to the digestive system.

• Our dependence on cooking led to a natural division of labor, with men hunting and women cooking. Even with men no longer hunting, women tend to be the primary cooks across cultures around the world to this day, perhaps a vestige of this earlier arrangement. Cooking encouraged pairing up (marriage) for the mutual assurance of a steady meat supply and reliable cooking services.

CATCHING FIRE goes beyond explaining the cooking theory of evolution to exploring its fascinating, controversial implications for our entire understanding of diet, nutrition, and obesity. Wrangham fearlessly takes on the food labeling system, which regularly misleads us as to the true caloric content of our foods. The resulting confusion about how foods really impact the body contributes greatly to the epidemic of obesity in the United States, he argues. Wrangham also declares in no uncertain terms that the raw foods movement has got it wrong. Raw diets bring health risks, and we are not biologically adapted to them.

A dramatic story of how putting flame to food created our intelligent species, elegantly argued and full of provocative insights on diet and nutrition today, CATCHING FIRE will astound and delight the anthropologically curious, the health conscious, and foodies who have always keenly sensed the importance of cooking and the hearth to our species' well being.

ABOUT

Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University, Curator of Primate Behavioral Biology at the Peabody Museum, and Director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda. He is the co-author of Demonic Males and co-editor of Primate Societies, Chimpanzee Cultures, Science and Conservation in African Forests, and Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans. e has been featured on NPR and in The New York Times, Boston Globe, New Scientist, Scientific American, and more. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Paul D. Bartlett Sr. Lectures are presented by the Linda Hall Library in association with the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Kansas City, the Princeton Alumni Association of Greater Kansas City, and the Yale Club of Kansas City

Dr. Wrangham will sign copies of his latest book Catching Fire immediately before the lecture.