Arbitrary Boundaries

Humans love to categorize. We constantly divide things into groups – bees are different from butterflies, plants are different from animals, even one human is different from another, separated by boundaries we socially construct and secrets we keep. But what are the consequences of drawing these arbitrary boundaries? What gets left in, what gets moved out, and how fluid is the relationship among things we seek to divide? Join us for an evening in conversation with a social scientist and a theoretical evolutionary biologist as we think about why we separate ourselves from one another or one species from the whole, and what it would mean if those nebulous boundaries didn’t really exist.

Speakers: Jon Wilkins (Ronin Institute) and Michael Slepian (Columbia University)