The Genius of Dogs: Being with Humans
with Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
At the historic Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe, NM
Your dog—the one that chews your shoes, hogs the bed, and sneaks French fries off your plate—is an evolutionary wonder.
Descended from wolves that were less wary of humans, dogs spent thousands of years sizing us up, slowly adapting into creatures that not only provide companionship and manipulate our emotions but have the capacity to perform important jobs. They sniff out bombs, assist the disabled, protect livestock, and rescue lost children. Of all the species humans have helped domesticate, only dogs have the ability to be our co-workers as well as our best friends. As evolutionary anthropologists Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods have written, “A world without dogs is impossible to imagine.”
How did this happen? What is it about dogs that make them uniquely lovable yet useful? Hare and Woods have some theories. A renowned husband-and-wife team whose work explores the evolution of cognition, cooperation, and the human-animal bond, their research shows that dogs have a one-of-a-kind genius for getting along with people. The couple examines the roots of this intelligence in their acclaimed book The Genius of Dogs, a New York Times bestseller which neurologist Daniel J. Levitin calls “the definitive dog book of our time.” Their landmark discoveries are transforming how we live and work with dogs of all breeds, and what it means for us and our own canine family members.
We’re delighted to welcome Hare and Woods to Santa Fe to kick off the Being with Animals speakers series at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. They’ll discuss their work, the animals in their lives, and their two other books, Survival of the Friendliest and Puppy Kindergarten. We hope you will join us!
Brian Hare is a core member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology, Psychology, and Neuroscience at Duke University. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 2004 and, following his work at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, was awarded the prestigious Sofja Kovalevskaja Award in 2005. In 2007, Smithsonian magazine named him one of America’s top thirty-five scientists under 36. He has published more than one hundred scientific papers, and his research was featured in 2019 documentary Why We Hate, produced by Steven Spielberg.
Vanessa Woods is the director of Duke University’s Puppy Kindergarten and an award-winning writer and journalist. Her book Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in Congo won the Thomas Lowell Award for nonfiction in 2010, and her children’s book It’s True, Space Turns You into Spaghetti was named a Royal Society of Great Britain’s acclaimed book of 2007. She received the Australasian Science Award for Journalism in 2004, and in 2022, was voted a Duke Icon by the Duke community, in recognition of her kindness, passion, talent, and intellect.