Teaching is the killer app

When listening recently to the great BBC Radio 4 science show, The Infinite Money Cage, I learnt that, while chimpanzees and baboons learn from other members of their species (for example, tool using behaviour such as fishing for termites with twigs), there is much less evidence of active teaching.

We could congratulate ourselves on finding a way in which humans appear to be more advanced than our primate cousins. Teaching allows us to transmit knowledge, skills and wisdom across time and distance. It helps us to adapt to new environments and new circumstances. And its power and importance have only been reinforced by the current global pandemic.