Book · 2018 · Psychology
The Secret of Our Success
How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
- mentions
- 16
- people
- 7
- podcasts
- 6
- episodes
- 12
- critical mentions
- 0
So he has this book and that alone just you know really blew my mind it really made a big difference to how I understand humans.
William MacAskill · The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2022 Listen at 5:44 What they say about it
- Book publication details“published a book called”3
- Impact on thinking“had some of the biggest impact”2
The best things said about it
Uh so I have like another kind of set of books which are quite different but they've had some of the biggest impact on just the background of my thinking over the last few years in very subtle ways and that's Joe heinrich's books secret of our success and the EST people in the world.
William MacAskill The Tim Ferriss Show · Aug 2022 The Secret of Our Success is all about this.
What sets human beings apart from other species is our capacity for cultural learning.
Ezra Klein The Ezra Klein Show · May 2023 The Secret of Our Success.
The third book I want to recommend is The Secret of Our Success.
Joseph Henrich has this wonderful book about this.
Where and when it comes up
Mentions per year
How it comes up
Most mentions, by podcast
7 people who brought it up
Why people recommend it
The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich explores how human cultural evolution and cooperation, rather than raw individual intelligence alone, drove our species to dominate the globe. On EconTalk, Dwarkesh Patel praised the book to explain human cultural evolution and cooperation, noting that human success relied heavily on collective learning and shared practices. Similarly, on The Ezra Klein Show, the host recommended Joseph Henrich's book as his third final recommendation to listeners. William MacAskill also featured the work on The Tim Ferriss Show, where he recommended it as having a major impact on his thinking in subtle ways, explaining that the book completely changed how he understood human behavior and capability. Beyond these recommendations, the book frequently surfaced in discussions. On Dwarkesh Podcast, Dwarkesh Patel cited Joseph Henrich’s work multiple times, using it to illustrate how people acquire social norms and contrasting that process with how artificial intelligence language models learn. In another episode, Patel compared the book's perspective on intelligence and cultural knowledge with guests' views about artificial intelligence and AGI. Scott Alexander also referred back to Henrich’s book on the podcast as a prime example of how prior reading helps people interpret new concepts. Finally, during an episode introduction on the same podcast, Patel highlighted this earlier book by Henrich alongside his later work, cementing its status as a foundational text in evolutionary biology.
Every mention
William MacAskill so he has this book and that alone just you know really blew my mind it really made a big difference to how… 2
“uh so I have like another kind of set of books which are quite different but they've had some of the biggest impact on just the background of my thinking over the last few years in very subtle ways and that's Joe heinrich's books secret of our success and the EST people in the world”
“so he has this book and that alone just you know really blew my mind it really made a big difference to how I understand humans”
Dwarkesh Patel Joseph Henrik has this wonderful book about this. It wasn't just it wasn't um just intelligence, it wasn't… 6
“But we have so many innate biases to follow social norms. I mean Joe Heinrich's The Secret of our Success is all about this. Even if kids aren't in the conventional school system, I think it's sometimes noticeable that they aren't following social norms in the same ways.”
“Joseph Henrik has this wonderful book about this. It wasn't just it wasn't um just intelligence, it wasn't even mainly intelligence.”
“Scott, you reviewed Joseph Henrik’s book Secrets of Our Success, and then I interviewed him recently, and there the perspective is very much AGI is not even a thing, almost.”
“Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Joseph Henrich, who is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and an author of two of my favorite books, The Weirdest People in the World and before that, The Secret of Our Success.”
“So in The Secret, you discuss a lot of these lost European explorers with modern technologies as of at least a couple centuries ago encountering peoples who have for tens of thousands of years discovered ways of hunting and processing foods and so forth that, without which even these people with modern technology will starve.”
“Okay, so we’ve been dancing around the thesis of your book following The Secret, which is The Weirdest People in the World.”
Stephen Dubner in 2016 Henrik published a book called The Secret of our success how culture is driving human evolution dom… 3
“in 2016 Henrik published a book called The Secret of our success how culture is driving human evolution domesticating our species and making us smarter”
“in 2016 Henrik published a book called The Secret of our success how culture is driving human evolution domesticating our species and making us smarter”
“in 2016 henrik published a book called The Secret of our success how culture is driving human evolution domesticating our species and making us smarter”
Bryan Callen so we read this book called the secret of – uh their success the secret of our success by joseph henrik 1
“so we read this book called the secret of – uh their success the secret of our success by joseph henrik”
Ezra Klein his 2015 book The Secret of our success argued that what sets human beings apart from other species is our… 1
“his 2015 book The Secret of our success argued that what sets human beings apart from other species is our capacity for cultural learning”
Moshe Koppel One example that I you know that I think is is very nice is you know Joseph Henrich in his book The Secret… 1
“One example that I you know that I think is is very nice is you know Joseph Henrich in his book The Secret of Our Success talks about the the Tukanawans in the in the Amazon who uh have they they eat cassava.”
Scott Alexander I think the thing everybody does is they’ve read many books in the past and when they read a new book, they… 1
“I think the thing everybody does is they’ve read many books in the past and when they read a new book, they have enough background to think about it. Like you are thinking about our ideas in the context of Joseph Henrich’s book.”
Mentioned on the show without a named speaker1
“and the third book I want to recommend is the secret of our success by Joe Henrik”
Also mentioned in the same episodes
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“Well the way I describe it in The Secret is that it’s a package of things.”
“So the case I make in Secret is that, say, three million years ago, two million years ago, there were several factors that came together.”