WCVE Forum July 24: “The Good Show”

In this episode of Radiolab, a question that haunted Charles Darwin: if natural selection boils down to survival of the fittest, how do you explain why one creature might stick its neck out for another?

The standard view of evolution is that living things are shaped by cold-hearted competition. And there is no doubt that today’s plants and animals carry the genetic legacy of ancestors who fought fiercely to survive and reproduce. But in this hour, we wonder whether there might also be a logic behind sharing, niceness, kindness ... or even, self-sacrifice. Is altruism an aberration, or just an elaborate guise for sneaky self-interest? Do we really live in a selfish, dog-eat-dog world? Or has evolution carved out a hidden code that rewards genuine cooperation?

Join WCVE Public Radio for WCVE Forum this Sunday at 6:00 p.m.

Radiolab believes your ears are a portal to another world. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Big questions are investigated, tinkered with, and encouraged to grow. Bring your curiosity, and we’ll feed it with possibility.

Each hour we take a big idea, so big that it lives everywhere, hiding in a thousand places under different names, and we chase that idea, going wherever whim takes us. Along the way, hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich interview, argue, imagine, and discover the hidden connections that make this idea so surprisingly powerful.