Voices of Science

Nicholas Humphrey (1943-), psychologist, ethologist and philosopher, has made influential contributions to a number of academic fields: in experimental psychology he discovered 'blindsight' in a particular monkey 'Helen' leading to similar discoveries in humans; in ethology he pioneered work on the social function of intellect, in part inspired by observations of Dian Fossey's mountain gorillas; in philosophy he has developednew explanations for and understandings of the functions and mechanisms of human consciousness.  Since the 1980s, he has written and presented a number of television programmes, and published several popular science books.  His career has involved periods of work at the University of Cambridge's Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, the Department of Philosophy of Tufts University in the US and the London School of Economics, where he is now an Emeritus School Professor.