September 11, 2026
In his Hindustan Times column, Vital Signs, OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan explores how cooperation may have shaped the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness.
Using the Toba supervolcano eruption as an example, he explains how environmental pressures may have increased the survival value of sharing scarce resources, communicating knowledge, and building trust.
He highlights how language allowed knowledge to move between people, helping groups share information about food, water, and danger, while cooperation strengthened survival.
This perspective suggests that human intelligence may not have enabled cooperation, but that it evolved within a social environment shaped by cooperation.
Read the article here.
