Joseph Henrich

So there's this interesting different ways of thinking about the world.

Yeah, it's amazing how strong the intuition is, is that however it is where I live is how it is to be human.

So yeah, one of the things I've been most interested over my career is trying to figure out what is actually pan-human and what is just the particular societies that we grow up in.

Yeah, so this mission was led by Sir John Franklin, and it was an effort to find the fabled Northwest Passage with economic goals of energizing trade and connecting Europe and East Asia, and also doing some mapping of that area, understanding the magnetic field.

And it was a fascinating expedition because it was kind of the Apollo mission of the 19th century.

This was a super well-outfitted ship.

It had icebreaker technology.

It had retractable screw propellers.

It was insulated with cork.

There were desalinators on board.

And it had a new technology, canned food, which was meant to allow the crews to live for over a year trapped in the ice in the north.

So they were ready to engage in this exploration, and they were led by this experienced guy, John Franklin.

And so they headed out, and the very beginning of the trip went fine.

They were exploring the islands north of Canada.

They wintered near an island called Devon Island.

The ice came in around the ship as expected.

You know, I guess they cracked open the canned food and waited the winter out until the ice retracted, and then they kept exploring.

But the next year, they were near King William Island and they were exploring around there and the ice came in again and froze them in.

That was all expected.

But the next summer, the ice didn't seem to retract.