Running After Antelope

(This is the first story in a larger album I’m building. For more information please go to the website homebrave.com.)

Forty years ago, 1985, I was sitting in Art Silverman’s office at NPR in Washington, D.C. Art was a producer for All Things Considered. I was an independent producer, mainly for Weekend All Things Considered. We were working on something, I don’t remember what, and NPR Science Editor Anne Gudenkauf came by to talk to Art.

“Hey, tell Anne your idea for a science story,” Art said to me.

So I said, “My brother, Dave, is a graduate student in vertebrate morphology at the University of Utah, and he has a theory that human beings evolved as endurance predators, able to hunt without weapons by chasing large mammals until they collapse from heat exhaustion. This summer we’re going to test his theory by trying to run down a pronghorn antelope in Wyoming.”

I thought it was a good pitch, but as I spoke I saw Gudenkauf’s eyes cross and when I was done she turned and walked out of Art’s office without comment. It seemed I had insulted her intelligence.

A year later, Running After Antelope aired on All Things Considered and NPR started using it in training sessions as an example for how to produce a science story. Many people scoffed at my brother’s theory, back in the beginning, but now it’s become an accepted theory of human evolution.

Larry Massett edited the story and wrote the introduction, read by Noah Adams.

The music comes from Dire Straits (Why Worry) and Talking Heads (Television Man).

I invite everyone to listen to these stories for free and then decide whether they are worthy of a donation. If so, please go to homebrave.com and look for the DONATE button.