On April 27, 2024, members of The Human Generosity Project participated in Rutgers Day, a university-wide open house. Visitors to their table were able to use a laptop to play The Survival Game, which is also an interactive exhibit at San Francisco’s Exploratorium Museum and Omaha’s Kiewit Luminarium Museum. The game is based on the […]
Author: Diego Guevara Beltran
The Survival Game featured in Omaha’s new Kiewit Luminarium
On April 15, a new hands-on science museum, the Kiewit Luminarium, opened its doors in Omaha, Nebraska. Included among its displays is The Survival Game, which Human Generosity Project co-directors Athena Aktipis and Lee Cronk helped design for The Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco. The game is designed to teach museum visitors […]
Introducing the Intergalactic Compassion Council: live theater as a medium for science communication and compassion building
Jacob Buttry, a graduate student at Arizona State University, and colleagues invite you to a fun evening with aliens, theatre, research, and compassion! This live performance follows a group of space aliens who ask the audience to collaborate with them to consider how Earth can play a role in making the universe a more compassionate place for […]
The Social Instinct, a new book by professor Nichola Raihani
Nichola Raihani, who is a professor at University College London and also a member of The Human Generosity Project’s Scientific Advisory Board, has a new book out. Click here for more information about it!
Setting the record straight on The Mountain People: An open letter to Simon & Schuster
November 2020 Ms. Dana Canedy Senior Vice President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Dear Ms. Canedy, We are writing in regards to a book Simon and Schuster published in 1972: The Mountain People, an ethnography about the Ik people of Uganda written by Colin Turnbull. At the time of its publication, Turnbull was famous […]
Why were the Ik people of Uganda vilified as selfish and nasty?
“Neither nasty nor brutish: The Ik – among the poorest people on Earth – have been cast as exemplars of human selfishness. The truth is much more startling.” Click here to read the Aeon essay by anthropologist Cathryn Townsend.
HGP members find that, contrary to prior claims, the Ik people of Uganda are generous and cooperative.
Anthropologist Colin Turnbull famously claimed in his book The Mountain People that the Ik people of Uganda are extraordinarily selfish and mean. HGP team member Cathryn Townsend spent all of 2016 with the Ik, with return trips in 2017 and 2018, and found quite the opposite. Ik culture includes traits that encourage generosity and other […]
HGP directors featured on Sausage of Science podcast.
Human Generosity Project co-directors Athena Aktipis and Lee Cronk were recently interviewed by Christopher Lynn and Cara Ocobock for their Sausage of Science podcast. The podcast is sponsored by the Human Biology Association and can be found here.