Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language

Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Liverpool and has held fellowships at the Universities of Cambridge and Stockholm. He has been praised for 'writing that is dizzyingly multi-disciplinary but shows great generosity to the ordinary reader' (Guardian). His books include The Trouble with Science (1995), 'an eloquent riposte to the anti-science lobby' (Sunday Times), and Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, praised as 'brilliantly original' and 'a delight to read' (Focus).His main research interests are the evolution of the mind, and the social systems of human and non-human primates; he has carried out field studies of monkeys and antelope in East and West Africa, and of wild goats in Scotland. In June 2003 he led a team of academics which won the largest single grant ever awarded by the British Academy, to research what it means to be human.