On May 21, Brian presented "Everything we touch, touches us back: Culture, Biology, and Health." 

We are shaped by an immensely long evolutionary history living in nature as a social species, a million years of days spent with family and clan in a struggle against the weather, predators, hunger and enemies. Even our values of good and evil, including the Golden Rule, may have been shaped by how we treat others and our environment.

Medical science now shows that our attitudes and interactions touch us in ways that were once thought unmeasurable. We will discuss the medical, behavioral and archeological evidence of the impact of our relationships with nature and with each other on our immune systems and health.

Because present health, environmental, and political challenges could turn the planet towards irreversible change, this is the moment to embrace the inescapable interconnections of our history and our actions on our future. The good news is that we now know the biological basis for the ancient wisdom that the sources of greatest human strength come from touching the earth and each other. 

View the video, with Q&A at the end, here:

This was presented in collaboration with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Leverett House of Harvard College.