Sep 25, 20261h 17mS5
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction!” — Blaise Pascal. No moment in my teaching career has left a deeper impression on me than a biology class I gave in 2018...
education
On Humans
Hosted by Ilari Mäkelä · education · EN
About this Podcast:
Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we?On Humans offers conversations with leading scientists, historians, and philosophers, making new research about the human story more accessible to everyone — and more relevant to the big questions about who we are. In addition to regular episodes, the show now includes longer series on some of the greatest arcs in the journey of our species, covering everything from the evolution of apes to the making of the modern economy.https://onhumans.substack.com/about
Pitch Analysis
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
35%
Guest openness
Selective
80/100
Required Score
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What is On Humans about?
Where do we come from? How did we get here? And what kinds of creatures are we? On Humans offers conversations with leading scientists, historians, and philosophers, making new research about the human story more accessible to everyone, and more relevant to the big questions about who we are.
Who hosts On Humans?
On Humans is hosted by Ilari Mäkelä. The show has published 112 episodes to date.
What has On Humans covered recently?
Recent episodes include "How Do Humans Fit into the Story of Life? ~ Jonathan Loh" (25 September 2026, 77 minutes), "Beyond Paleo: A Culinary History of Humanity ~ Daniel Lieberman" (24 August 2026, 62 minutes), and "When Did Globalisation Really Begin? ~ Valerie Hansen" (25 July 2026, 48 minutes).
How often does On Humans publish?
On Humans publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 50 minutes across 112 episodes.
How hard is it to get booked on On Humans?
Booking probability for On Humans is 35%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. On Humans requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. On Humans's contact route on record: verified email.
Who should pitch On Humans?
The strongest fits for On Humans are Courses, Coaching & Lessons. On Humans has an education audience and around 950 subscribers on YouTube.
About the host
Ilari Mäkelä hosts On Humans, an education podcast with 112 episodes published.
Verified host email: ████████@████.comSign in to unlock →
Recent episodes
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
- Aug 24, 20261h 2mS5
“What do you think of the paleo diet?” To my surprise, this has become the most common question I get after telling people that I cover human evolution. I’ve long struggled to answer. Yes, the idea makes a lot of sense...
- Jul 25, 202648 minS5
We can decide to stay home, but even then, the wider world is always close to our skin. From global trade to ideas that travel across continents, the wider world is always woven into our modern life. Since when has this...
- Jun 21, 202642 min
How old is war? Does it stretch deep into human origins, or did warfare become common only as growing populations settled down? In Part II of this conversation with Douglas P. Fry, we return to the long-running debate...
Episode #6
The Why of War and the How of Peace, Part I: Lessons from the Modern World ~ Douglas P. Fry
Jun 19, 202648 minS5History is full of wars. Why? Is war driven by fear? Greed? Revenge? Ambitious leaders? Is it rooted deep in human nature—or does it emerge only under particular social conditions? And what do we learn if we change the...
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Episode #5
The Big Picture: Measuring the Origins of the Modern World ~ Bishnupriya Gupta & Stephen Broadberry
May 14, 202647 minS5Was India once an affluent empire, later impoverished by British colonisation? Or was India never rich to begin with? More generally, what does historical data on wages and other economic indicators tell us about the...
- May 7, 202647 minS5
The tech gap between China and the West is closing fast. But why did the land that invented paper and gunpowder ever fall behind? Debin Ma is the world’s leading economic historian of East Asia. In this fourth episode...
- Apr 29, 202659 minS5
Why was industrial modernity born in Europe and not, say, China? This is one of the most consequential questions about the origins of the modern world. Yet asking “why Europe” can mislead. The Industrial Revolution was...
- Apr 22, 202648 minS5
Several inventions mark the progress towards modernity - the Gutenberg printing press, the Galileo telescope, the Watt steam engine. But why was Europe the birthplace of so many of these? Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025...
- Apr 16, 202654 minS5
Why did Western Europe become the richest region of the early modern world? Was the rise of the West powered by colonization, inventions, or something else entirely? And what happened to the medieval might of China and...
- Apr 4, 20261h 23m
Something big is coming soon. Stay tuned! Whilst waiting, you can enjoy one of my all-time favourites from the archives. A lot of the recent episodes have mentioned the impact of bipedalism in the human story, but the...
- Mar 7, 202654 minS4
Imagine a group of ancient humans, crafting stone tools at the dawn of humankind. What did these creatures look like? To find out, we can stare at the skulls in museums or glance at reconstructions made by...
Episode #17
The Original Affluent Society? Lessons from 60-Years of "Man the Hunter" Research ~ Richard B. Lee
Feb 10, 202659 minS4What was life like before farming? Was it nasty, brutish, and short? Or did our hunter-gatherer ancestors live lives that were relatively free, affluent, and ecologically stable? In the lack of a time machine, many...
- Jan 21, 20261h 20m
The world is full of religions, but none as timeless as shamanism. And whilst many modern religions have shed their shamanic skins, the shaman is rarely as far away as we have been told. Or so argues anthropologist...
- Jan 10, 202628 min
Happy 2026! On Humans has typically marked the coming of January by revisiting the previous year’s most popular episode. This time, the New Year special packs the five-hour-long "Origins of Humankind" series into one...
Episode #16
Why Do We Laugh? Philosophers on Jokes, Humor, and the Human Condition ~ Mira Magdalena Sickinger
Dec 24, 20251h 2mS4“The podcast is great, but one thing hasn’t been covered yet: humour. It’s an essential part of our human condition, and would certainly be worth an episode.” This listener feedback was easy to agree with. From standup...
- Dec 5, 202526 minS4
We are a movable species. In less than 50 thousand years, Homo sapiens has penetrated practically all corners of the earth. This is an episode about those epic migrations, with a focus on the two furthest edges of the...
- Dec 1, 202515 minS4
European thinkers once divided humanity into distinct "races". The idea stuck, even if the science moved on. The shape of humanity, it turned out, is far messier than the old race theorists ever imagined. This much is...
- Nov 27, 202522 minS4
Genetics is rewriting the human story. This week, On Humans takes you behind the scenes of this rapidly evolving frontier via three live-recordings, captured at the Salk Institute's CARTA symposium on ancient DNA. The...
Nov 24, 202542 minThe science of human origins keeps producing new theories. But are we any closer to telling a true story of human origins? Or are we simply drowning in data? Earlier this November, the chair of UCSD’s Department of...
Recent guests
Recent guests on On Humans. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
J
Joel Mokyr
author of A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, Northwestern University
M
Manvir Singh
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UC Davis, University of California, Davis
J
Judy Grisel
behavioral neuroscientist, professor, Bucknell University
D
Dean Falk
professor of anthropology, Florida State University
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