# Harvard Science Book Talk: Christine Webb, "The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters" #### calendar\_today Date and Time **September 30, 2025** 06:00PM - 07:00PM EDT #### pin\_drop Location **Harvard Science Center Hall D** 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 [ Order Free Tickets arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/christine-webb-at-the-harvard-science-center-tickets-1542808675279?aff=oddtdtcreator) ![Curistine Webb book cover and headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum7191/files/2025-09/Webb-mail.jpg) Darwin considered humans one part of the web of life, not the apex of a natural hierarchy. Yet today many maintain that we are the most intelligent, virtuous, successful species that ever lived. This flawed thinking enables us to exploit the earth towards our own exclusive ends, throwing us into a perilous planetary imbalance. But is this view and way of life inevitable? The Arrogant Ape shows that human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, more on delusion and faith than on evidence. Harvard primatologist Christine Webb has spent years researching the rich social, emotional, and cognitive lives of our closest living relatives. She exposes the ways that many scientific studies are biased against other species and reveals underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life—from the language of songbirds and prairie dogs, to the cultures of chimpanzees and reef fishes, to the acumen of plants and fungi. With compelling stories and fresh research she gives us a paradigm-shifting way of looking at other organisms on their own terms, one that is revolutionizing our perception both of them and of ourselves. Critiques of human exceptionalism tend to focus on our moral obligation towards other species. They overlook what humanity also stands to gain by dismantling its illusions of uniqueness and superiority. This shift in perspective fills us with a sense of awe and satisfies one of our oldest and deepest desires to belong to the larger whole we inhabit. What’s at stake is a better, sustainable way of life with the potential to heal and rejuvenate our shared planet. --- **Christine Webb** is a broadly trained primatologist at Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, with expertise in social behavior, cognition, and emotion. She works with nonhuman primates in diverse settings and collaborates with scholars from the social sciences and humanities to reimagine the role of science in the growing charge to grant moral status to other animals. Her work has been covered by popular outlets including *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, *National Geographic*, and the *BBC*. --- Organization/Sponsor: Harvard Division of Science, and Harvard Library, Harvard Book Store, and Long Now Boston For more information and videos of Harvard Science Book Talks, see . **Contact Info:** [science\_lectures@fas.harvard.edu](mailto:science_lectures@fas.harvard.edu) See also:- [ Science Public Lecture Series ](/event-type/science-public-lecture-series) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://science.fas.harvard.edu/node/1623286/event-feed.ics) Copy link link