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Despite all evidence to the contrary, “the world is getting better,” argues physician By and sociologist Nicholas Christakis. It’s in our genes. Design By Julia M. Klein

hen you think of shipwrecks, you circumstances. Many other shipwrecks— Published in March, and debuting on might imagine the vicious adoles- notably the British explorer Ernest Shack- bestseller list, Wcent dystopia of William Golding’s leton’s famously abortive Imperial Trans- Blueprint (Little, Brown Spark) is a sci- Lord of the Flies or the sexual de- Antarctic expedition of 1914-17—off er entifi c manifesto—a fl ag marking a terri- pravities of the Bounty mutineers and stellar examples of leadership and altru- tory of hope during what Christakis con- their descendants on Pitcairn Island. Or, ism. Stranded on desolate Elephant Island cedes is an era of polarization and peril. considering the risks of starvation, you and awaiting rescue, Shackleton’s recruits “It may therefore seem an odd time for might fret over the prospects of cannibal- relied on “friendship, cooperative eff ort, me to advance the view that there is more ism. Such cases have been documented. and an equitable distribution of material that unites us than divides us and that “Two out of the 20!” protests Nicholas resources,” Christakis writes. When the society is basically good,” he writes. “Still, A. Christakis G’92 Gr’95 GM’95, whose valiant Shackleton returned with help to me, these are timeless truths.” ambitious new book, Blueprint: The Evo- more than four months later, all 22 of the Ranging fearlessly across disciplines, lutionary Origins of a Good Society, in- men he’d left behind were still alive. Blueprint refl ects the prodigiousness of cludes a chapter on the “natural experi- To Christakis, this tale of human hero- Christakis’s learning and sums up his ment” of shipwreck societies. As Christa- ism is not an outlier: the ebullient, recent research interests. But it is also a kis interprets the data, that low number 57-year-old Yale-based physician and triumphant declaration of his world of man-eating men is cheery news: it sociologist sees the bright side even of view, lessons garnered from a mainly underlines the human tendency toward disaster—and he’s developed a theory fortunate life that has also been shad- cooperation, even under life-threatening that explains why. owed by tragedy. The book marshals a

50 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May|Jun 2019 ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS SHARP May|Jun 2019 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 51 wide variety of evidence to argue not Happiness (2006). “I think that’s what specifi c interventions on maternal and only that societies are fundamentally impresses me most about Blueprint: It’s infant health, the project is now explor- benign, but that their goodness has a this sweeping synthesis … I can’t think ing the connections between bacterial fi rm genetic underpinning. of too many people I’ve ever met who’d patterns and human networks and how Christakis, the of be capable of producing a work with that neighborly relationships aff ect the inci- Social and Natural Science at Yale and kind of breadth and sweep.” dence of depression. director of the university’s Human Na- Blueprint, in asserting social univer- ture Lab, also suggests that genes and hristakis’s intellectual leaps have, in sals and insisting on their genetic ori- cultures interact and co-evolve in a vari- the past, occasioned controversy, gins, has an even loftier feel than Con- ety of ways—with culture, in some cases, Cand are likely to do so again. Con- nected. “He’s more than interdisciplin- fostering (relatively rapid) evolutionary nected: The Surprising Power of Our ary—he’s almost transdisciplinary,” says change. One classic example he cites is Social Networks and How They Shape Renée C. Fox, the eminent Penn medical the culturally transmitted ability to con- Our Lives—How Your Friends’ Friends’ sociologist who was Christakis’s disserta- trol fi re and cook food, which changed Friends Affect Everything You Feel, tion adviser. “His work has become more teeth, muscles, and the stomach, and Think, and Do (2009), coauthored with and more macro. Starting with very “freed up energy to power the demand- the political scientist James H. Fowler, grounded phenomena that he studied ing human brain.” A more recent in- was an immense popular success. The ethnographically, he keeps enlarging the stance involves a group of “sea nomads,” book and Christakis’s related academic framework within which he is doing re- a people called the Sama-Bajau who live articles drew on data from the Framing- search and analysis and refl ection.” in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philip- ham Heart Study, a longitudinal public- pines and spend several hours a day div- health experiment, to suggest that obe- “If it were not healthy for us to live in ing for food. As a result, Christakis writes, sity, happiness, and other traits spread a social state, evolution would not they have evolved “genetic mutations through social networks in unexpected have sustained it,” Christakis says in a that appear to equip them with the abil- yet ultimately predictable ways. The freewheeling two-hour interview in his ity to cope with oxygen deprivation.” claims spawned voluminous newspaper Yale offi ce, interrupted by a talk with an Central to Christakis’s claims is the idea and magazine coverage; the research undergraduate aspirant to the lab, the of what he calls the “social suite.” Societ- “caught the cultural zeitgeist,” Christakis joyous introduction of a lab member’s ies, he says, are universally characterized says. “The attention—it was insane.” He six-week-old son, phone calls from two by love for partners and off spring, friend- even showed up on Time’s annual list of of Christakis’s three adult children, and ship, social networks, cooperation, in- the 100 world’s most infl uential people. the constant pinging of texts. “We would group bias, mild hierarchy, learning and At the time, a handful of economists not live together if all we did was kill teaching, and recognition of individual and mathematicians groused at Chris- each other. Then we would have evolved identity. These traits, he maintains, are takis’s statistical methods and conclu- to stay away. We would not live socially.” biologically ordained. In his view, culture sions. He reacted by continuing to re- The glittery array of academics who and environment account only for varia- fi ne—and to double-down on—his social have endorsed Blueprint includes Penn’s tions in how these hard-wired social ten- networking studies. “We thought some Adam Grant [“Good Returns,” Jul|Aug dencies are expressed. In the case of part- of the criticism was reasonable, and 2013], the Saul P. Steinberg Professor of ner love, for example, diff erent cultures some was stupid, and some was unfair,” Management and Psychology at Wharton, over the millennia have prescribed mo- he says. “So we said in response to the and Angela Duckworth Gr’06 [“Charac- nogamy or polygyny or (in rare cases) critics, ‘OK, we’ll give you more and big- ter’s Content,” May|Jun 2012], the Chris- polyandry as norms. But, for Christakis, ger experiments.’” topher H. Browne Distinguished Profes- it is the genetic blueprint that is founda- Some of these have been as sweeping sor of Psychology and a 2013 MacArthur tional. It is our genes that “explain why as Christakis’s theories. In partnership Foundation “genius award” recipient for culture exists at all.” with the Honduras Ministry of Health her research on “grit.” , the Bold and imaginative leaps—across and the Inter-American Development Harvard psychology professor whose 2011 , genetics, psychol- Bank, Christakis is spearheading a mul- volume, The Better Angels of Our : ogy, anthropology, , and other tiyear fi eld experiment involving about Why Violence Has Declined, is footnoted fi elds—are a Christakis signature. “He’s 30,000 people in 176 villages in rural in Blueprint, calls Christakis’s book a polymath,” says Daniel Gilbert, the Ed- Honduras, using software, Trellis, devel- “timely and fascinating.” gar Pearce Professor of Psychology at oped by his lab to map social networks. “Despite the failures of our society, the Harvard and author of Stumbling on Begun as an inquiry into the impact of pogroms, the Inquisitions and the Cru-

52 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May|Jun 2019 sades and the endless war, the world is we’ve had every single kind of person you getting better,” Christakis says, agreeing can imagine come through this lab.” with Pinker. But he notes their diff erent Grounded in the hard sciences, Fotouhi emphases: “Steven is arguing about the has the skill set to apply mathematical historical forces. I’m interested in forces techniques to social-science questions. that are prehistoric. Before colonialism, Marcus Alexander, a Serbian immigrant before the pogroms, before anti-Semi- whose title is research scientist, has pur- tism, before all of that stuff , we did all sued a similarly eccentric career arc. He these things: We loved each other, we earned his doctorate in government at befriended each other. Harvard, where Christakis was one of his “Now, we also killed each other, we did two dissertation advisers. Then, at Stan- all that stuff , too. The historical and cul- ford, he completed two years of medical tural forces are overlaid over this bio- school and a postdoctoral stint as a labora- logical foundation. And I’m completely tory biologist. At the Human Nature Lab, aware that every century, every millen- he supervises the “wet lab,” involved in the nium is replete with horrors. But there genomic sequencing of bacteria in Hon- is also good in the world. And that’s what “Every century, duran stool and saliva samples. Alexander I chose to write about.” hypothesizes that “the microbiome and By coincidence, Pinker’s latest book, every millennium human communities co-evolved,” and that Enlightenment Now: The Case for Rea- understanding bacterial evolution over son, Science, Humanism, and Progress is replete with time may provide insights into human (2018), is sparking an informal lunch- interactions and the development and time discussion at Christakis’s Human horrors. But there structure of human social networks. Nature Lab. A suite of offi ces branching “We don’t affi rmatively recruit,” Chris- off a central conference room, the lab is is also good in the takis says after joining lab members adorned with social-network graphs, around a conference table. “People fi nd us, framed magazine covers trumpeting re- world. And that’s like you guys all found us, and you have cent research coups, and a graphic show- these quirky interests, and you feel like ing Christakis’s lineal intellectual de- what I chose to they can’t be met by existing disciplines scent from such giants of sociology as write about.” and structuring. I see my job as lifting you Max Weber and Talcott Parsons. up … I think the best thing I can do at any Launched by an undergraduate, the con- ics. If you measure in that sense, it’s not level of career is take you and guide you by versational thread about Pinker is quickly enlightenment—it’s endarkenment. It’s the shoulders and move you to where the taken up by Babak Fotouhi, an Iranian- not progress; I think it’s de-gress. So it scientifi c frontier is, and say, ‘Look out born postdoctoral associate. Previously a depends on how you measure things.” from here—here’s where there’s new stuff .’ postdoc at Harvard’s Program for Evolu- By any measure, the Human Nature And that’s why people come to me: to get tionary Dynamics, Fotouhi holds degrees Lab, part of the Yale Institute for Net- rapidly moved to the frontier. in physics, electrical engineering, and work Science (which Christakis also co- “The other thing I used to say is, ‘We sociology, and his professional bio lists one directs), is a lively and idiosyncratic make beautiful things, whether it’s soft- of his interests as “the social construction place. Christakis describes his work ware, or methods, or data, or discover- of unquestioned assumptions.” home as “an island of lost toys”: a refuge ies.’ I used to talk about how our lab was Sure enough, on this February after- for interdisciplinary thinkers ill-suited about discovery and beauty.” But Chris- noon, Fotouhi is arguing that Pinker’s for traditional academic departments. takis’s current, somewhat secretive re- very terminology—his use of the word “Great civilizations arise at the inter- search gig at Apple—he’s on his fi rst- “progress”—embodies a set of dubious section of trade routes. And great ideas, ever sabbatical this year, splitting his assumptions. “My picture of a successful new ideas, arise at the intersection [of time between Cupertino, California, and human is not wealth or health, it’s how disciplines],” he says. “We’ve had compu- his mountain home in Norwich, Ver- meaningful their life is,” Fotouhi says. tational biologists, physical anthropolo- mont, with only monthly visits to New “We’re living in an age [in which] if you gists, economists, political scientists, Haven—has modifi ed his thinking. ask people the meaning of life, they get applied mathematicians, sociologists, Apple, he says, talks about creating depressed, and we have opioid epidem- doctors, health services researchers— products that surprise and delight. “Sur-

May|Jun 2019 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 53 prise is a heuristic for the function being likes the mosquito idea because “the met through friends, married, and at- a step function, the fact that … there’s a mosquitoes are cool, and also not that tended graduate school at Yale, where kind of discontinuity,” Christakis says. expensive—I fi nd, wholesale, you can his father trained as a nuclear physicist The notion of discontinuity sounds like buy thousands of mosquitoes for, like, a and his mother as a physical chemist, a another way of framing those high-risk, hundred bucks.” rare choice for a woman of that era. cross-disciplinary leaps for which Chris- Christakis has nevertheless decided to When Nicholas was three, the family takis has been striving all along. dispense with the insects and go a dif- returned on vacation to Greece, where his The range of subjects under investiga- ferent route to investigate his diff eren- father was unexpectedly drafted into the tion by the Human Nature Lab is matched tial-scent hypothesis. But he reassures military. But they were able to relocate to by its diversity of techniques: computa- lab members: “If you come to me with a Washington about three years later, after tional biology, anthropological fi eldwork, crazy idea, I very rarely say no.” took an urban plan- massive online experiments, randomized ning job with a Greek architectural fi rm. controlled fi eld trials in the developing ccording to his younger brother, In 1968, when Nicholas was six, his moth- world, innovative data analysis, and more. Dimitri A. Christakis M’92, even er was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, While the Honduras project, whose AChristakis’s adolescent play was cre- a type of blood cancer. He spent the re- funders include the Bill and Melinda ative. “He was a legendary pillow mainder of his childhood in the shadow of Gates Foundation, the NOMIS Founda- fi ghter, the best in the entire neighbor- her illness. During a seven-year remission, tion, the Robert Wood Johnson Founda- hood, undefeated,” says Dimitri, a pedia- she taught high school mathematics, ad- tion, and India’s Tata Group, is its larg- trician who directs the Center for Child opted a teenage boy and a young girl, and est, the lab also has worked in India, Health, Behavior and Development at earned a doctorate in clinical psychology Uganda, China, Tanzania, Sudan, and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. from Howard University. But, in the mid- elsewhere. Coren Apicella, assistant pro- “He invented many techniques, including 1970s, the cancer returned, and Nicholas’s fessor of psychology at Penn, collabo- taking a small pillow and compacting it father left. (He remarried and now lives in rated with Christakis and others on so that it swung at the end of the case Crete.) It was no coincidence that all three fi eldwork involving the Hadza, a group like a mace. It was that pillow that made of Lenna’s sons became doctors—or that of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania. The a dent in our plaster wall when I ducked Nicholas’s medical interests would include team investigated friendship, coopera- under it. We later moved a painting over prognosis and end-of-life care. tion, and social networks—research that it to cover [the dent]. My mother asked In the midst of earning his MD and mas- is featured in Blueprint. “We found that why we hung it so low.” ter of public health degree from Harvard, the structures of the networks were the Dimitri, who followed his brother Christakis took time off to care for his same as among Americans living in a through the elite St. Albans School in mother. “‘It’s time for you kids to go back to modernized society,” Christakis says. Washington, DC, and then Yale, recalls school, and it’s time for me to die,’” Chris- The Human Nature Lab meeting runs Nicholas as “an extraordinary student” takis recalls her saying. “She was like a rapidly through a range of current proj- who set an intimidatingly high academic Samurai.” The end came when she was 47, ects, which include building hybrid sys- bar. They have three other siblings: a and he was just 25, a huge emotional blow. tems of humans and robots that interact younger biological sister, an adopted sister Deciding against becoming a plastic socially, studying risk behaviors in mar- who is African American, and an adopted surgeon, Christakis set his sights on an ginalized communities, and exploring brother of Taiwanese descent, who is now academic career. An essay by Fox, “Train- whether people with diff erent social a renowned endocrine surgeon. Christa- ing for ‘Detached Concern’ in Medical tendencies emit diff erent scents. kis’s mother, Lenna (she added the second Students,” aff ected him deeply, and he Christakis says he believes that mos- n late in life, Christakis says, to combat arranged a meeting with her in Philadel- quitoes “should fl y toward social people mispronunciation), had a staunch com- phia at a café near her Rittenhouse because there will be a cluster of them, mitment to social justice that included Square home. so if you miss the fi rst person, then you welcoming relative strangers to their “She was incredible,” Christakis recalls. might fi nd someone else to eat.” He was Thanksgiving table. “We were proud of our “She got me a piece of chocolate cake, and so obsessed with the mosquito experi- mother,” Christakis says, choking up at the I love chocolate cake! She was so smart ment at one point that his Yale colleagues memories. “She had grace.” and so kind as well, and, of course, my festooned the lab with mosquito stickers. Both parents came to the United States mother had just died, so I’m sure there One of his sociology graduate students, from Greece as Fulbright Scholars. Chris- was some transference going on as well.” Jacob Derechin, with a background in takis’s mother matriculated at Vassar; Fox, professor emerita of sociology and physics and an interest in biology, still his father, Alexander, at Princeton. They Annenberg Professor Emerita of the So-

54 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May|Jun 2019 cial Sciences, also remembers that fi rst “I’m interested in how natural selection has encounter. Christakis, she says, was “an extraordinarily brilliant young man with shaped not just the structure and function a tremendous amount of life energy and of our bodies, not just the structure and imagination, and also a deep and empa- thetic relationship to some of the issues function of our minds, but the structure of the human condition.” She would be- come both his academic mentor and a and function of our societies.” close family friend. Shortly before that, Christakis had met his future wife, Erika L. Christakis (née year later after obtaining a master of I was surrounded in clinical work by Zuckerman) ASC’93, an early-childhood public health degree from Johns Hop- people who were dying,” Christakis says. educator and writer. It was “love at fi rst kins. While Erika was pursuing a mas- So he made a deliberate, if modest, turn sight,” they both say. ter’s degree at Annenberg and giving toward “studying the widowhood eff ect “Our origin myth is a nice one,” he says. birth to their fi rst two children, Christa- and the health benefi ts of marriage.” Their meeting was, in fact, a network phe- kis completed a medical residency, did That move, he says, “sets the stage for nomenon. Christakis’s high school best postdoctoral work as a Robert Wood my interest in social networks because friend’s girlfriend had become a friend of Johnson Clinical Scholar, and earned his then I start thinking about pairs of peo- Erika’s. After Erika’s 1986 graduation sociology doctorate. ple and how one person aff ects another.” from Harvard, they were in Bangladesh Their next stop, in 1995, was the Uni- In 2001, Christakis was recruited to together, working with a women’s health versity of Chicago. Living in Hyde Park, Harvard, to professorships in both so- development program. At one point, the Christakis met Barack Obama once (they ciology and . There, he says, friend told Erika: “I just thought of the also shared a babysitter) and got to know he became interested in the evolution- man you’re going to marry.” As Christakis Arthur H. Rubenstein, his department ary biology of human social interac- relates it, Erika’s response was: “We need chair at the time and, from 2001–11, ex- tions and its implications for culture, a guy who’s closer to here, not 10,000 ecutive vice president of Penn’s health behavior change and public health—lay- miles back in the United States.” system and dean of the Perelman School ing the foundation for both Connected Fast forward six months to Washington of Medicine. and Blueprint. From 2009–2013, he and and an arranged meeting at the friend’s “He is so innovative and entrepreneur- Erika served as co-masters (the title has family home. Christakis’s fi rst glimpse of ial and creative,” says Rubenstein, who since changed to faculty dean) of Erika was of her arguing. “She was just adds that he tried unsuccessfully to re- , one of Harvard’s 12 full of life,” he says. “I was attracted to cruit Christakis to Penn shortly before residential houses. Nicholas’s warmth and charisma and in- the sociologist moved to Yale. “Nicholas Daniel Gilbert says they became fast telligence,” Erika says. is able to combine creative ideas and friends on Christakis’s initiative “because But the relationship almost faltered be- thoughts, and then do the experimental A) he reads everything, and B) he’s this fore it began. Intending to show that he work—with rigorous science and biosta- big, warm, friendly, loud Greek guy who was “good husband material,” Christakis tistics and —to really prove wants to know everybody.” Gilbert had followed the two children of the household what he thinks about. And that’s kind of recently published Stumbling on Happi- to a bedroom to admire their possessions, a unique combination.” ness, on how people think about the fu- which included a prized cobra skin. “The Christakis’s research at Chicago focused ture. “And Nicholas said, ‘I’m your col- thing you need to know about Erika is that on “prognostication and ICU decision league in sociology downstairs, I wrote she has a psychological phobia of snakes. making and hospice delivery systems,” a book about prognosis, on how patients I did not know this at the time,” he says. and his clinical practice involved hospice think about the future, and I wonder if “Erika, who is at the door, blurts out: ‘If visits to the city’s predominantly African we have some interests in common.’” you touch that snakeskin, you’ll never American South Side. In 1999, the Uni- It turned out that both had largely touch me.’ And my heart soared because versity of Chicago Press published his moved on from the subject of prognos- she blurted out that she liked me—she was fi rst book, based on his Penn dissertation, tication. “I’m not sure we ever had an- disinhibited by her fear of the snake.” They Death Foretold: Prophecy and Prognosis other conversation about that topic,” had their fi rst date three days later. in Medical Care. Gilbert says. “But what we did fi nd out Christakis moved to Philadelphia in “My wife was very worried that I was is that we liked each other and had a lot 1989, and Erika joined him in the city a getting very depressed because, literally, of fun talking about ideas together.”

May|Jun 2019 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 55 When Christakis decamped for Yale in curses. In the fallout, Erika left her function of our bodies, not just the struc- 2013, Gilbert says, “I think, for Harvard, teaching job, while Nicholas announced ture and function of our minds, but the it was a great loss. For me, personally, it his sabbatical. And, at the end of the structure and function of our societies.” bordered on a tragedy to not have him academic year, the couple resigned their Social systems themselves, he notes, nearby.” But he understands why his Silliman posts. In an Op-Ed in the Wash- have selective eff ects. “Those among us friend made the choice he did. At Har- ington Post a year after the incident, who can survive in the new order that vard, Christakis was “a citizen of two Erika suggested that their ordeal exem- we create then get selected for, and so worlds,” sociology and medicine, while at plifi ed a “worrying trend of self-censor- then we get more and more of them,” Yale, he says, “they gave him this remark- ship on campuses.” he says. “Cooperative people fare better able institute, which he runs, which is in cooperative environments. A coop- really a great intellectual home for him.” The costume controversy erative person is killed in a non-coop- is not exactly Christakis’s favorite topic. erative environment.” wo of Christakis’s three children, a In a New York Times opinion column in What’s more, he says, “The social en- son and a daughter, have attended March, Frank Bruni quoted him as call- vironment we take with us wherever we TYale (his other son graduated from ing it one of “the top 10 worst things to go—that’s the other amazing thing about Harvard). A charismatic lecturer, happen in my life,” but adding “there are it. So unlike the physical environment, Christakis taught his popular medical other competitors for that honor.” which varies from place to place, the sociology course, which attracted up- Blueprint begins with a 1974 scene of social environment is the same: People wards of 200 students, as well as gradu- mob protest in Athens, in which Greeks have friends everywhere, people teach ate seminars. His wife held a lectureship frustrated by dictatorship screamed, other people everywhere, people love at the Yale Child Study Center. And in “Out with the Americans!” Christakis, a their partners everywhere.” 2015, he became master (now “head”) of frightened boy at the time, writes: “Per- The conclusions of Blueprint are “ex- , one of Yale’s residential haps oddly for a man who has spent his traordinarily positive” and “very uplift- colleges, while Erika was appointed as- adult life studying social phenomena, I ing,” says Fox, who still talks to Christa- sociate master. have never liked crowds.” kis regularly. “That is his almost meta- Just two months into their Silliman Reading that, he says during the offi ce physical world view, but that that’s tenure, they found themselves painfully interview, “You’ll get a sense of my where he came out is not to be taken for embroiled in the ongoing debate about thoughts on how mobs can lead people granted, since he’s extremely knowledge- free speech and racial sensitivities on col- astray.” The reasons he stepped down able also about the darker sides of the lege campuses. The incident was sparked from Silliman “are very complex and not human condition and suff ering.” by an email from Erika in response to something I talk about,” he says. “Suffi ce Fox, a polio survivor, tells one fi nal administrative guidelines on the selec- it to say that those experiences had ef- story about Christakis and their “very tion of (inoff ensive) Halloween costumes. fects on my whole extended family. And special teacher-student relationship.” Speaking from a child-development per- I was and am on the side of young peo- This story, too, takes place in Athens, spective, she suggested that students ple.” (With their three biological chil- where she was on a research trip, and were mature enough to dress themselves dren grown, the Christakises are now Nicholas happened to be visiting. “He without adult interference. And she quot- caring for a foster child.) helped me to climb to the top of the ed what she said was Nicholas’s advice: “I think the same qualities that can Acropolis,” she recalls. “I was less physi- “[If] you don’t like a costume someone is lead to a lot of goodness in the way we cally handicapped then than I am now, wearing, look away, or tell them you are live together can also lead to a lot of bad- I was younger, but I still could not have off ended. Talk to each other. Free speech ness,” he says. “And my book is an eff ort done it alone.” Analogizing the experi- and the ability to tolerate off ence are the to explain why, nevertheless, despite the ence to “the vast vista of his work,” she hallmarks of a free and open society.” ways we’re led astray, on the whole we says: “By helping me up that path, he Impassioned student protests, charg- make good societies.” made it possible for me to see this great ing the couple with racism and calling In fact, he says, “it’s an extended argu- panorama that I wouldn’t have been able for their ouster, erupted. A viral video ment about sociodicy—a vindication of to see otherwise.” showed Christakis telling a group of stu- society, despite its failures. It must be the dents in the Silliman courtyard, “I have case, across evolutionary time, that the Julia M. Klein, a cultural reporter and critic a vision of us … as human beings that benefi ts of a connected life outweigh the in Philadelphia, last profi led Eva Moskowitz actually privileges our common human- costs. I’m interested in how natural selec- C’86 for the Gazette. Follow her on ity,” and being met with insults and tion has shaped not just the structure and @JuliaMKlein.

56 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May|Jun 2019