full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Robert Wright: The evolution of compassion

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now, there's more good news that came along later in evolution, a second kind of evolutionary logic. Biologists call that "reciprocal altruism." OK. And there, the basic idea is that compassion leads you to do good things for people who then will rturen the favor. Again, I know this is not as irnpinsig a notion of compassion as you may have herad in the past, but from a biologist's point of view, this reciprocal altruism kind of compassion is ultimately self-serving too. It's not that people think that, when they feel the cspmioason. It's not consciously self-serving, but to a biologist, that's the loigc. And so, you wind up most easily extending compassion to friends and allies.

Open Cloze


Now, there's more good news that came along later in evolution, a second kind of evolutionary logic. Biologists call that "reciprocal altruism." OK. And there, the basic idea is that compassion leads you to do good things for people who then will ______ the favor. Again, I know this is not as _________ a notion of compassion as you may have _____ in the past, but from a biologist's point of view, this reciprocal altruism kind of compassion is ultimately self-serving too. It's not that people think that, when they feel the __________. It's not consciously self-serving, but to a biologist, that's the _____. And so, you wind up most easily extending compassion to friends and allies.

Solution


  1. inspiring
  2. logic
  3. compassion
  4. return
  5. heard

Original Text


Now, there's more good news that came along later in evolution, a second kind of evolutionary logic. Biologists call that "reciprocal altruism." OK. And there, the basic idea is that compassion leads you to do good things for people who then will return the favor. Again, I know this is not as inspiring a notion of compassion as you may have heard in the past, but from a biologist's point of view, this reciprocal altruism kind of compassion is ultimately self-serving too. It's not that people think that, when they feel the compassion. It's not consciously self-serving, but to a biologist, that's the logic. And so, you wind up most easily extending compassion to friends and allies.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
golden rule 20
good news 8
bad news 5
human nature 4
kin selection 3
religious leaders 3
basic idea 2
compassion leads 2
evolutionary logic 2
sense built 2
fortunes add 2
modern world 2
moral imagination 2
moral exercise 2


Important Words


  1. allies
  2. altruism
  3. basic
  4. biologist
  5. biologists
  6. call
  7. compassion
  8. consciously
  9. easily
  10. evolution
  11. evolutionary
  12. extending
  13. favor
  14. feel
  15. friends
  16. good
  17. heard
  18. idea
  19. inspiring
  20. kind
  21. leads
  22. logic
  23. news
  24. notion
  25. people
  26. point
  27. reciprocal
  28. return
  29. ultimately
  30. view
  31. wind