David Bainbridge

Talk Description

Often dismissed as an unpleasant transitional stage or maligned as a blight on society, are teenagers really as unproductive and worthless as we are usually told? David Bainbridge, author of 'Teenagers: A Natural History,' uses anthropology, physiology, history and psychology to argue the teenage years should be seen as a unique human innovation — the phenomenon that has allowed us to achieve our unique success. He argues that many of the wonderful and stressful things teenagers experience may only be understood in light of our species' bizarre evolutionary history. Zits, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll — all human life is here.

Biography

David Bainbridge is a popular science writer, veterinarian and reproductive biologist; at the time, Clinical Veterinary Anatomist at the University of Cambridge and Admissions Tutor in the Arts and Humanities at St Catharine's College. After zoology and veterinary degrees from Cambridge, he studied at London's Institute of Zoology and Royal Veterinary College, and Oxford University, and worked at Cornell and Sydney Universities. His main research field is interactions between fetus and mother in humans and animals. He has written popular science books about pregnancy, sex chromosomes, and the brain, and was writing his sixth book, Middle Age: A Natural History, while continuing some veterinary practice.