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Dr. Anna Machin

lines on the record: 189
first: 2025-07-03
most recent: 2025-07-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“It is the prefrontal cortex doing its job, I would say. It's not doing its job terribly well. The ICA's a really recent thing that was generated by social media. And this idea of narrowing in closer and closer and closer in what people like to call red flags. And you don't get a lot of information from online dating because you don't get a lot of sensory information to help you make a decision. So people become more and more obsessive what's in the image. What's in the image? What can I get about this person? And they start to become obsessed with tiny, tiny things. What ultimately people find attractive is very, very complicated. There are so many different things that feed into attraction, whether or not somebody has boxes on top of their wardrobe is very unlikely to be even vaguely important in terms of compatibility. I don't think they should be called dating apps. I think they should be called introduction apps. And that's actually what the great Helen Fisher said. She said they're introduction apps. They broaden your pool. They make more people available to you. That's it. You're not having a date on that app. You're not learning about that person on that app. You're literally seeing them for the first time and as soon as you...”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. That's why how people treat, I mean, personally, I find people who treat waiters enraging, badly enraging. That's why. Because it's a rare representation of who you are at your core. Or they express a value which goes completely against a value that you have. We know in terms of long term compatibility, it's things to do with personality, it's things to do long term values or beliefs that are the most important things. So let's say somebody said something horrendously homophobic or something like that or something racist, that's an immediate right. No, this person is not for me.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think probably the absolutely worst thing you can say, and this comes from a lot of data saying, what's the most important, is to say something unkind So we know regardless of everything else, the one thing that people want in a long-term relationship is somebody kind. Something critical of somebody else in the room, particularly something critical. I mean, you don't know what that person's interests are, but something critical about something that's very important to them.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say because ultimately as humans, the thing that makes us the most successful species on the planet is our brain, not your shoulder waist ratio, not your waist hip ratio, it's actually your brain because you want your kid to have the most creative, flexible, funny, intelligent, emotionally intelligent brain they can have. And that's what you're looking for in a partner in the long term.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because you need to check someone's intention. So the mentalizing area of the brain is important. The sad bit, and I'll explain this in a minute, is unfortunately that bit shuts down a little bit, which isn't very helpful, but we'll talk about that. So then as soon as they open their mouth, you start to contemplate them consciously. And what you contemplate consciously in terms of your attraction can actually override the unconscious bit. So you might have had this amazing feeling of lust and chemistry as you walk across spar thinking, wow, this person's amazing. I'm feeling astonishing. They open their mouth and they say something to you which is just, you know, unconscionable or awful or they've got no sense of humor or they're really unkind or whatever it might be. And suddenly that bit will step in and go, uh-uh, nope, this person is not for me, and that can override the biology. But that's why what we say, and I always say the brain is the sexiest organ in the body, because ultimately it's what you express with your brain that is going to really determine whether or not this love is going to go anywhere. And that's what you...”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which is known as the striatum, which is unconscious, and this area of the brain, the free frontal cortex. So your unconscious brain and your conscious brain can work together in attraction. And also this area of the brain at the back, which is known as the mentalizing, empathizing area of the brain. So we need to have empathy in relationships. It's the basis of love. So understanding someone's emotional state and being able to respond to it appropriately. And also mentalizing, so mentalizing his mind reading. What's their intention? What are they going to do next? You need it for conversation. You also need it to spot a cheat.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, so what you're doing, your biological market value comes out. As I say, you hit dopamine oxytocin, your amygdalaquatins, you feel much more confident, you feel much more chilled. Dopamine motivates you to walk across the bar and off you go and you strike up conversation. And that is the way attraction works in all mammals. It's completely unconscious. So you don't know any of this is happening. What's different in humans is very quickly after that, particularly once they've opened their mouth, it all starts kicking off in the outer area of the brain. So your neocortex. So the major social area of the brain is here. This is your prefrontal cortex. And your prefrontal cortex is where all those social abilities sit. So trust, reciprocity, ability to maintain, ability to abstract about your relationship, or ability to daydream about what it's going to be. And that's where all that sits. So we start seeing firing off here. And what's really important for human love is a connection between this area of the brain.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because Beta and Dorphin evolved initially as your body's painkiller, that's Stella, a role it has. Over time, it's been co-opted into our social sphere. But we know you have pain receptors in your gut. So if you have a curry, your gut gets a little bit irritated because it's a little bit spicy. So don't have a karma and it produces beta endorphin. And we know that that will also help you feel more euphoric, help you feel more relaxed, and help that person be more attracted to you because they will also get a hit of it. So that's your ideal data. I appreciate it's very niche and not everyone wanted to do that. But there are ways.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Means to be firing. Yes, absolutely. So quite often people say to me, how can I hack my first date? So the way you can hack your first date is you can do an activity which releases beta endorphin and dopamine and oxytocin. The best one I have found, which I appreciate is a niche interest, is some form of dancing in couples, ballroom dancing, you know, tango, whatever it is. Because first of all, you're touching. So you get released oxytocin and beta endorphin. They're both released by touch. You're moving around as any gym bunny knows. Okay, so you're releasing lots and lots of lovely oxytocin dopamine and beta endorphin doing that. Then afterwards, you need to go and have a curry.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's where fear sits. And that's the thing that if you're not feeling confident has that monologue in the back of your head going, okay, you're just not very good at this. You're going to walk across the bar. You're going to say hello, and they're going to humiliate you. So it quietens that area. We see less activity there. So you've got more confidence, also oxytocin makes you feel quite chilled. It's quite nice. And then dopamine is also released because dopamine is your hormone of motivation. And if you just had oxytocin, you might be so chilled. you sat on the barcom and you did not move Having a lovely time. So dopamine is there to go, no, you actually have to go across the bar and you have to say hello. And so they work really, really well together. And they also went together to make your brain more plastic.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we get all these things. You take all that in, you take in that visual information, you do your little algorithm in your brain, which obviously you don't know is happening. If you get a good ping, as in, yes, this person has a good biological market value. I like that. What happens is in the very core of the brain, in the middle. So this is the very core of the brain here. There's a structure in there called the nucleus accumbens. It's full of dopamine and oxytocin receptors. That fires off, goes completely mad if we look at it on the screen. And dopamine and oxytocin flood that system. And the reason why they are important is in a way they are the hormones of attraction. So oxytocin lowers your inhibitions to starting new relationships. Okay, so it takes away the fear. And the way it does that is it quietens your amygdala. So the amygdala is a tiny little structure down here at the bottom”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Off 160. Okay, but that's actually really only Olympic athletes, so please, everyone, don't rush off and worry. But what that's showing is that shows certain things which are desirable in a male. So things like physical strength. So if you have a big upper body and a narrow waist, first of all, it shows you're not holding fat around here, which is a real sign of ill health for men. It shows you that your very fat around here. It shows that you've got very broad shoulders. You are muscular. You are able to protect and provide. It's a sign of reasonably high testosterone. Testosterone is linked to success in men. So it shows that I'm a successful person in our society that's successful socially and successful financially.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, now the ideal there is 1.6 What I will say before men rush off and measure their way is really only Olympic athletes have 1.6”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Women look at slightly different things. And for women, what's really interesting is it's not as visual. So women look at the shoulder waist ratio. So that's, yes, there we go. And what you're looking for as a woman is a triangle. So nice broad shoulders, narrow waist.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the reason for that is there is a direct link between that ratio and, for example, fertility. So if a woman has that share, she's got high circulating estrogen. It shows she's not near menopause. Because when we go to menopause, we get more of a male figure. It goes towards one, the ratio, because of the drop in estrogen and the buildup in testosterone. So we know that. There's a link between 0.7 and a range of illnesses, chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, certain forms of cancer. So actually what you're assessing there is how healthy is this woman? So if I take myself off the market for a period of time, am I going to end up with some kids? And is she healthy to raise them?”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cross culturally. If we go, and it's nothing to do with weight because some cultures like bigger weights than other cultures, nothing to do with weight, it's to do with the ratio. And so if we show that ratio to different cultures, they will go, it's that one.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Walking down the street not mentioning to them what we're looking for, they're wearing eye tracking technology and what they do is the first thing they glance at, even if they don't know it, is the waist tip ratio. Before, for example, they will look at the face. And what they're calculating is what that ratio is, because we know cross-culturally, the most attractive ratio is a 0.7. And that is actually a classic hourglass.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you've taken in all that information from the sensors. It's all worrying around in here. And what your brain is actually doing is your brain has got a very complicated algorithm, which is working out the biological market value of the person in front of you. Now the biological market value is how likely that person is to be reproductively successful. Because from an evolutionary point of view, that's the whole point of your existence, whether you want kids or not, guys. That's the point is you have to reproduce, have some lovely healthy kids, raise them to maturity so they can reproduce because we just want your genes from an evolutionary standpoint. We're not interested in you as a personality. And so you want somebody who has got the highest likelihood of being good at that. And we can tell that from lots of things to do with how someone looks, the pitch of their voice, how they smell, what men actually do is they look at the waist hip ratio. You don't know you're doing it. But eye tracking experiments show that men do it. They don't know that it's completely unconscious. Wonderful study's been done with people.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We think it's probably because the cost to a woman of getting it wrong and having a baby who is basically too genetically close is much greater than it is for a man because she is basically taking herself out of that opportunity to reproduce for nine months plus the bit after to look after that child. And so that's a really long period of time. Whereas a man, it's not that costly.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, we've tested this in several ways. There was the very famous t shirt tests, which tell you people love, where you make a load of men, put on a very plain t-shirt. They're not allowed to wash. They're not allowed to use deodorant. They're not allowed to do anything. Wear it for 24 hours, then we put it in some Ziploc bags. And we went to get some port unsuspecting woman to sniff the ball. And the idea is that the one she finds most attractive to sniff is the one which is genetically furthest away from her. And it does work. It works. When you genotype her, you can see that they are different. We don't have to do that anymore. We have very sophisticated genotyping technology now. If you really wanted to, there's a company in Switzerland that will do it for you. So you can spit on something, send it off with your partner, and they will tell you how close your major histocompatibility complexes are.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can smell them, but it's not going to give you any information about genetic compatibility. So, what happens is a woman, the major histocompatibility complex. It underpins your immune system. It's a complex set of genes. And bizarrely, that set of genes also underpins your ability to smile, your olfactory system. And in women, they can smell how genetically close a male's MHC is, major hosocompatibility complex, how close it is.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, the difference is so when we are younger and we look for a partner, for a romantic relationship, we don't know we're doing it. There are two stages of attraction in romantic love. There's the unconscious stage, which we share with all the mammals. And then there's the conscious stage, which is very different. That involves your neocortex, which looking at this is this big worn-up bit on the outside. Human love is special because it involves two very distinct areas of the brain. So this is the limbic area of your brain, this bit in the center here. That's your unconscious brain. That's where your emotions sit, where nurturing behaviors sit, where attachment behavior is a bit. It's very evolutionarily ancient. It's been around for millions and millions of years. And this is where initially attraction starts. And what you do is you lock eyes with some across crowded room and you take in loads of sensory information about them. So you take in visual information, what do they look like? What does their body shape tell me about their value? How are they moving? Do they look healthy? If you're a woman, you will give them a good...”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“be twenty thirty, forty, even fifty years. So I think women post-50, and there's been a massive uptick in post-50 divorces instigated by women, is they look at their partner and they think, you are a great dad. I selected you when that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to have children, I wanted to build fun. But I look at you now and I think, but is this the person I want to do the next phase of my life with? Because that's a very different set of needs. And so we're seeing women actually looking, no, do you know what? I'm going to start afresh. I'm going to do something different. And it might be they look for a different relationship, or they might be, yeah, they decide I'm not going to have another romantic relationship.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Their chosen families, and that's who they're turning to. And that's why we're seeing less and less women saying that romantic love is a priority or parental love is a priority. And in one sense, that's great because actually it's showing that all these loves are equal. And I can love in that way. And I think that's wonderful in one sense. But yes, it does mean that we're turning away from that idea of long-term cohabiting companionship. And so when people say to me, for example, is marriage going to die? Are we going to end? No. I don't think it is. We will always, for example, have a ritualistic marking of a romantic relationship, whatever sex you are, and whatever sexuality you are. I think that will always exist. But we're going through a bit of a seed change. We're also seeing it in older women, postmenopausal women, because it's only really very recently that we've got to a point where we have a long postmenopausal lifespan as women. Usually, you know, 100 years ago, if you got to 50, which is the age for menopause, the standard age, you were lucky if you were still alive. But now that period of time could...”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's definitely more individualistic. We've become a more individualistic society. So we are looking more at yes, what do I want rather than in a way contributed to community, which is what collectivist societies do. Women in the past had to get married. You couldn't have children out of wedlock. That was definitely not acceptable. You had to get married because that's where your financial security was. And that's what you did. Quite often those marriages weren't based on love. They were based on very pragmatic decisions about this is where I need to be. So women have been freed from that. They don't have to do that anymore. The other thing to say is they've realized that romantic love isn't the only love in the box. What we call their key survival critical relationship in many cases, so the relationship that's going to support them emotionally, physically, practically, all those sorts of things. Are there female friends?”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that we really won't need dads at all, even to conceive children at some point, which to me sounds ludicrous. And that's where it's come from. And we've embedded that and we embedded it in our media. So dads were always bumbling or useless or absent. You know, daddy pig is the ultimate bumbling useless father. And we laughed at it. We think it's funny.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's cultural. We have this idea that, and it's partly, it partly came very much from the Victorian period where fathers were seen to be disciplinarians and providing the money. And that was the Victorian idea of being a father. It's also to do with our politics and society for a long time. So women weren't able to go out to work. And that's where we've remained until very, very recently. But there's no biology behind that. That's entirely cultural. And I think also it's very much the case. Yes, women today, we have contraception, so we can control our production of children. We can earn our own money. We can protect ourselves. We can look after ourselves. So actually, in one sense, you think, well, yeah, what's the dad for? Because I can do all those things which historically the father had to do when women's positions were different. And we've sort of carried on with that. And there's become this mantra of actually then we just don't need them. I mean, I've even been to lectures where they've decided that the Y chromosome is going to become obsolete.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Its cultural is entirely cultural because there are cultures in the world who don't think that. Our fathers are very, very integral. So, in fact, one of the most hands-on fathers in the world is from the Aka tribe in the Congo. They keep physical contact with their children for 50% of the day. They carry them around, they co-sleep, not the mum, they co-sleep with the children.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The mantra was Dad didn't undergo any changes. Dads did not have a bond like mum to their children. It was not as intense and it certainly wasn't an attachment relationship, which we all know are really intense and foreign relationships. And as an evolutionary anthropologist, I was like, that can't be right because human fatherhood is rare. We are one of only 5% of mammals that have investing fathers and we're the only ape. Now, for something that rare to evolve, it has to have had a purpose because it led to amazing anatomical, social upheavals. So that's what I began to do 20 years ago. I started asking those questions. I recruited my first group of 15 first-time fathers when their partners were three months pregnant. And off we went.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this made me really angry, actually, because I was like, hold on, we went into this together, and he's literally been discarded, like he doesn't matter. And to me, he's fundamentally important. And then as our daughter grew, I saw the amazing bond he built with her, how integral he was to her life. And so when I went back to university at Oxford to study and to do my work, I thought, well, I'm an anthropologist. Okay, let's look up what do we know about fathers in our society. And there was literally nothing. There was a lot of work on absent fathers and their impact is fundamental, we know that. And there was a lot of quite stereotypical work on young fathers, teenage fathers. Nothing on the majority of dads who, when they co-reside or not, stick around. So I started with some really simple questions. What happens to a man when he becomes a father? Does he alter biologically, psychologically? How does he build his bond with his child? What's the nature of that bond? Does he have a role in child development separate to that to mum? Because when I started twenty years ago”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nobody explained to him what was happening. And so they mopped me up, took my baby, took her to neonatal care, and left him in the room on his own. And I was breathing very shallowly and he was scared. And the cleaner came in and said, I was cleaning away. And he just said to the cleaner, do you think she's dead? Because I was breathing so shallowly. And the cleaner went, no, I don't think so, mate. I think they would have told you if she was dead. But after that, he couldn't talk about the birth. He couldn't imagine the birth. He couldn't deal with the emotions from the birth for a good two years afterwards. And he was really worried about having another kid.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have the wrong idea about fathers, the way our culture deals with fathers treats fathers is wrong, the myths we carry about fathers are wrong, the influence they have on their children and ultimately on our society is fundamental. So the link came because I had a child. And like most couples who have a baby, you know, we talked about it. We were like, we're going to start trying to have a baby. Then we became pregnant, which was great, did the pregnancy test together, went to the antinatal classes, went to the scans. All wonderful. Went in to have the baby. And it didn't turn out how it was supposed to. I was very, very ill. I lost a lot of blood. My daughter was poorly when she was born. And afterwards, I was offered loads of counselling, which is like a debrief, would you like? And I was like, well, to be absolutely honest, I'm okay because I passed out. I literally don't remember anything. But my husband witnessed it all. And he basically saw a car crash in slow motion with two people in it who he loved very deeply. And I completely understand why it was a very stressful information, but no.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so an anthropologist is somebody who studies the human species. I'm an evolutionary anthropologist, which means I sit at the scientific end of it. You can sit at sort of the cultural end or the scientific end. And I study how evolution has shaped us and also why things evolved. So for example, why did love evolved? Why did fatherhood evolve? And I use lots and lots of different techniques. Scanning and genetics and all these different things to be able to answer that question.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've committed the last two decades of my life to understanding human love and understanding human close relationships. Because as an anthropologist, I understand that love since the centre of order is to be human. If you strip everything else away and you just, you've got your food, you've got your water, the next thing you need are your relationships is your love. We are so lucky as a species to experience love in quite a complex way with many different types of people and beings. And we know that it's like the number one thing in terms of your health, mental, physical, your longevity, your happiness, your well-being. And I think we need to understand it, particularly in a world where we're starting to get a lot of input in terms of technology and AI and the world is getting quicker. We need to go back to who we are really at our core and what love really is. And I suppose that's what I've given my life over to is to really explain to people, who are you? Because your love is your identity.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The way our culture treats fathers is wrong, the myths we carry about fathers are wrong. Men have a very specific role in child development and I wasn't expecting to find this when I first started, but it's fundamental for a child to thrive and survive and be successful. So what we're finding is”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can smell them, but it's not going to give you any information about genetic compatibility. So your brain is going to help you assess whether they're any good for you. If you get a good ping, certain chemicals that are at the very core of the brain, take away the fear and gives you motivation. Now, human love is so complicated. So, for example, the chemistry that underpins love is also involved in neurodiversity.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We don't know we're doing it and it involves two very distinct terrorism threats. So there's the unconscious stage. That's where you take in loads of sensory information about them. So for example, if you're a woman, you can smell genetic compatibility.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we've done studies on it. And I've committed the last two decades of my life to understand the neuroscience of love.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are not a monogamous species. It's a social construct. And I get attacked for saying things like this. But sexual monogamy from an evolution point of view is not a good idea. That's why we have a reasonably high rate of people who have extramarathal affairs.”
2025-07-03 · The Diary of a CEO · World Expert on Fatherhood & Love: The Truth About Monogamy, Breakups & The Science of Love! Dr. Anna Machin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT