Robert Trivers was the first to describe the theory of reciprocal altruism and Noam Chomsky is… well… Noam Chomsky is the man (not to be confused with The Man). What happens when you bring together in one room the evolutionary theorist who changed the way we think about cooperation and social interactions with the intellectual who has probably done more to challenge entrenched power structures in our society than anyone else? A hell of an interesting conversation, that’s what. From Seed magazine:

The full text of the discussion can be found here.

Chomsky and Trivers discuss the role of self-deception in a variety of human behaviors, from impressing the opposite sex to leading the U.S. into a misguided and deadly war in Iraq. These guys certainly have a knack for tying it all together, and they do it here once again.