Honorary Doctoral Degree Awarded at May 2019 Commencement to Leda Cosmides and John Tooby

Estefanía Campos  | 08 de mayo de 2019  | Vistas: 148

Universidad Francisco Marroquín granted Leda Cosmides and John Tooby an honorary doctoral degree in social sciences, the maximum distinction of this house of studies and named them honorary professors for their work on evolutionary psychology and liberty.

Leda reflects on the climate of free speech and truly liberal education that UFM offers and later talks about her context growing up, where she questioned herself, isn’t there a better way to live? And realized she would find that answer by studying human nature through psychology; this then led her to study economics to understand the interaction between people.

There can be intuitions that we have that certain kinds of policies are good, when in fact when you analyze them cautiously in a large society like this, they turn out to be disastrous”. - Leda Cosmides

Cosmides finally talks about the importance of a free society for the pursuit of happiness, in societies where millions of people interact, and each person’s own decisions and values should be respected.

Tooby later shows his gratitude for the honorary doctorate. Comments on Leonardo Da Vinci, who was considered the smartest man, despite not knowing calculus; something that most students probably learned and gives them an advantage. John, from and evolutionary perspective describes the advantages other species have and what in his opinion is the human kind advantage.

Our specialization is cognitive, is knowledge, is learning. The thing which makes humans unique is our ability to learn, to discover and share”. - John Tooby

Tooby end his speech talking about the discovery of truth, which is a hard task, and gives examples on how the collective beliefs are not always the correct. He encourages students to download new knowledge to their head and keep searching for evidence of what’s truth.