H. Clark Barrett is Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He is a biological anthropologist who studies the evolution of cognition and how concepts, values, and ways of thinking circulate within communities and around the world. Since the late 1990s he has worked with Shuar, Achuar, and Shiwiar communities in Ecuador on topics ranging from cooperative decision-making and moral judgment to Indigenous approaches to knowledge and ownership. He has participated in several collaborative international research projects, including the Geography of Philosophy Project, a three-year project that investigated concepts of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding around the world. He is the author of The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve (2015, Oxford University Press), which examines debates about the adaptive nature of cognition in light of contemporary theory in evolutionary and developmental biology. His recent work has focused on ethics and values in evolutionary and cognitive science, and how the study of evolution and cognition can be expanded to include Indigenous and non-Western perspectives. He is co-editor of Epistemologías Andinas y Amazónicas: Conceptos Indígenas de Conocimiento, Sabiduría y Comprensión (2023, PUCP Press), and the forthcoming Southern Epistemologies: Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding in the Andes and Western Amazon (HAU Press). Currently he is Director of the UCLA Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, and President of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.

Presentation Video Link: Deciding What To Observe About Human Variation