Scientific Speciesism: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism in Primatology and Beyond, with Christine Webb
April 25 2025, 16:00 GMT/ 12:00 EST/ 09:00 PST (4pm GMT/ 12 pm EST/ 9am PST)
Scientific Speciesism: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism in Primatology and Beyond
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? In this talk, New York University primatologist Christine Webb, author of "The Arrogant Ape," will outline how human exceptionalism is an ideology that relies more on human culture than our biology, exposing many scientific studies’ biases against other species and revealing underappreciated complexities of nonhuman life.
About the speaker
Dr. Christine Webb is an Assistant Professor at New York University Department of Environmental Studies, where she is part of the Animal Studies program.
She is a broadly trained primatologist with expertise in social behavior, culture, cognition, and emotion. Her research also explores how contemporary norms and institutions shape scientific knowledge of animals and the environment, with a critical emphasis on human exceptionalism. Her debut book, The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and
Why it Matters (Avery/Penguin Random House), was recently named one of the The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of the Year.
