The Evolution Of Us

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A Story of Us

Author : Lesley Newson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190883227
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis A Story of Us by : Lesley Newson

Download or read book A Story of Us written by Lesley Newson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time for a story of human evolution that goes beyond describing "ape-men" and talks about what women and children were doing. In a few decades, a torrent of new evidence and ideas about human evolution has allowed scientists to piece together a more detailed understanding of what went on thousands and even millions of years ago. We now know much more about the problems our ancestors faced, the solutions they found, and the trade-offs they made. The drama of their experiences led to the humans we are today: an animal that relies on a complex culture. We are a species that can and does rapidly evolve cultural solutions as we face new problems, but the intricacies of our cultures mean that this often creates new challenges. Our species' unique capacity for culture began to evolve millions of years ago, but it only really took off in the last few hundred thousand years. This capacity allowed our ancestors to survive and raise their difficult children during times of extreme climate chaos. Understanding how this has evolved can help us understand the cultural change and diversity that we experience today. Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, a husband-and-wife team based at the University of California, Davis, began their careers with training in biology. The two have spent years together and individually researching and collaborating with scholars from a wide range of disciplines to produce a deep history of humankind. In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take readers through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.

The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us

Author : Adam Rutherford
Publisher : The Experiment, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1615195327
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (151 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us by : Adam Rutherford

Download or read book The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us written by Adam Rutherford and published by The Experiment, LLC. This book was released on 2020-05-12 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review Publisher’s Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal. In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.

Why Only Us

Author : Robert C. Berwick
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262533499
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Only Us by : Robert C. Berwick

Download or read book Why Only Us written by Robert C. Berwick and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berwick and Chomsky draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and humans' remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it. “A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.” —New York Review of Books We are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year or so, infants master the sound system of their language; a few years after that, they are engaging in conversations. This remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language—“the language faculty”—raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars—a computer scientist and a linguist—addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define “language” and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguishes us from all other animals. Berwick and Chomsky discuss the biolinguistic perspective on language, which views language as a particular object of the biological world; the computational efficiency of language as a system of thought and understanding; the tension between Darwin's idea of gradual change and our contemporary understanding about evolutionary change and language; and evidence from nonhuman animals, in particular vocal learning in songbirds.

The Secret of Our Success

Author : Joseph Henrich
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691178437
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Secret of Our Success by : Joseph Henrich

Download or read book The Secret of Our Success written by Joseph Henrich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How our collective intelligence has helped us to evolve and prosper Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains—on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

The Book That Changed America

Author : Randall Fuller
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143130099
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book That Changed America by : Randall Fuller

Download or read book The Book That Changed America written by Randall Fuller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling portrait of a unique moment in American history when the ideas of Charles Darwin reshaped American notions about nature, religion, science and race “A lively and informative history.” – The New York Times Book Review Throughout its history America has been torn in two by debates over ideals and beliefs. Randall Fuller takes us back to one of those turning points, in 1860, with the story of the influence of Charles Darwin’s just-published On the Origin of Species on five American intellectuals, including Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, the child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace, and the abolitionist Franklin Sanborn. Each of these figures seized on the book’s assertion of a common ancestry for all creatures as a powerful argument against slavery, one that helped provide scientific credibility to the cause of abolition. Darwin’s depiction of constant struggle and endless competition described America on the brink of civil war. But some had difficulty aligning the new theory to their religious convictions and their faith in a higher power. Thoreau, perhaps the most profoundly affected all, absorbed Darwin’s views into his mysterious final work on species migration and the interconnectedness of all living things. Creating a rich tableau of nineteenth-century American intellectual culture, as well as providing a fascinating biography of perhaps the single most important idea of that time, The Book That Changed America is also an account of issues and concerns still with us today, including racism and the enduring conflict between science and religion.

Apes and Human Evolution

Author : Russell H. Tuttle
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674073169
Total Pages : 1089 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Apes and Human Evolution by : Russell H. Tuttle

Download or read book Apes and Human Evolution written by Russell H. Tuttle and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 1089 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterwork, Russell H. Tuttle synthesizes a vast research literature in primate evolution and behavior to explain how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another, and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species distinct from other hominoids. Along the way, he refutes the influential theory that men are essentially killer apes—sophisticated but instinctively aggressive and destructive beings. Situating humans in a broad context, Tuttle musters convincing evidence from morphology and recent fossil discoveries to reveal what early primates ate, where they slept, how they learned to walk upright, how brain and hand anatomy evolved simultaneously, and what else happened evolutionarily to cause humans to diverge from their closest relatives. Despite our genomic similarities with bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas, humans are unique among primates in occupying a symbolic niche of values and beliefs based on symbolically mediated cognitive processes. Although apes exhibit behaviors that strongly suggest they can think, salient elements of human culture—speech, mating proscriptions, kinship structures, and moral codes—are symbolic systems that are not manifest in ape niches. This encyclopedic volume is both a milestone in primatological research and a critique of what is known and yet to be discovered about human and ape potential.

Evolution Gone Wrong

Author : Alex Bezzerides
Publisher : Harlequin
ISBN 13 : 1488075859
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution Gone Wrong by : Alex Bezzerides

Download or read book Evolution Gone Wrong written by Alex Bezzerides and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An unforgettable journey through this twisted miracle of evolution we call ‘our body.’” —Spike Carlsen, author of A Walk Around the Block From blurry vision to crooked teeth, ACLs that tear at alarming rates and spines that seem to spend a lifetime falling apart, it’s a curious thing that human beings have beaten the odds as a species. After all, we’re the only survivors on our branch of the tree of life. The flaws in our makeup raise more than a few questions, and this detailed foray into the many twists and turns of our ancestral past includes no shortage of curiosity and humor to find the answers. Why is it that human mothers have such a life-endangering experience giving birth? Why are there entire medical specialties for teeth and feet? And why is it that human babies can’t even hold their heads up, but horses are trotting around minutes after they’re born? In this funny, wide-ranging and often surprising book, biologist Alex Bezzerides tells us just where we inherited our adaptable, achy, brilliant bodies in the process of evolution.

Shaping Humanity

Author : John Gurche
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300182023
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Shaping Humanity by : John Gurche

Download or read book Shaping Humanity written by John Gurche and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-26 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the process by which the author uses knowledge of fossil discoveries and comparative ape and human anatomy to create forensically accurate representations of human beings' ancient ancestors.

Becoming Human

Author : Ian Tattersall
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780156006538
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Becoming Human by : Ian Tattersall

Download or read book Becoming Human written by Ian Tattersall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the evolution of humankind--who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us

Author : Alice Roberts
Publisher : Heron Books
ISBN 13 : 162365808X
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (236 download)

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Book Synopsis The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us by : Alice Roberts

Download or read book The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us written by Alice Roberts and published by Heron Books. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From your brain to your fingertips, you emerge from her book entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself" --Richard Dawkins Alice Roberts takes you on the most incredible journey, revealing your path from a single cell to a complex embryo to a living, breathing, thinking person. It's a story that connects us with our distant ancestors and an extraordinary, unlikely chain of events that shaped human development and left a mark on all of us. Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embroyos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy. This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.

Delicious

Author : Rob Dunn
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691242089
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Delicious by : Rob Dunn

Download or read book Delicious written by Rob Dunn and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A savory account of how the pursuit of delicious foods shaped human evolution Nature, it has been said, invites us to eat by appetite and rewards by flavor. But what exactly are flavors? Why are some so pleasing while others are not? Delicious is a supremely entertaining foray into the heart of such questions. With generous helpings of warmth and wit, Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez offer bold new perspectives on why food is enjoyable and how the pursuit of delicious flavors has guided the course of human history. They consider the role that flavor may have played in the invention of the first tools, the extinction of giant mammals, the evolution of the world’s most delicious and fatty fruits, the creation of beer, and our own sociality. Along the way, you will learn about the taste receptors you didn't even know you had, the best way to ferment a mastodon, the relationship between Paleolithic art and cheese, and much more. Blending irresistible storytelling with the latest science, Delicious is a deep history of flavor that will transform the way you think about human evolution and the gustatory pleasures of the foods we eat.

Everyday Information

Author : William Aspray
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262015013
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Everyday Information by : William Aspray

Download or read book Everyday Information written by William Aspray and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the evolution of information seeking in nine areas of everyday American life. --from publisher description.

Evolution

Author : Alice Roberts
Publisher : Dorling Kindersley Ltd
ISBN 13 : 0241365805
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis Evolution by : Alice Roberts

Download or read book Evolution written by Alice Roberts and published by Dorling Kindersley Ltd. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travel back in time eight million years to explore the roots of the human family tree. Interweaving latest discoveries, maps, and incredible illustrations, Evolution tells the story of our origins and helps us better understand our species, from tree-dwelling primates to modern 21st-century humans. Renowned Dutch paleoartists the Kennis brothers bring our ancestors to life with their beautiful, accurate reconstructions that visually trace each step in our evolutionary history. Combined with clear prose, this comprehensive yet accessible book provides a rich history of each stage of human evolution, from human anatomy and behaviour to the environment we live in. It also explains how Homo sapiens originated, evolved, and then migrated and colonized the entire planet. Written and authenticated by a team of experts and with a foreword by Dr Alice Roberts, Evolution is a sweeping account of humans and our place in it.

The Evolution of a Nation

Author : Daniel Berkowitz
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691136041
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of a Nation by : Daniel Berkowitz

Download or read book The Evolution of a Nation written by Daniel Berkowitz and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book also examines the effects of early legal systems.

The Evolution of Beauty

Author : Richard O. Prum
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385537220
Total Pages : 448 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Beauty by : Richard O. Prum

Download or read book The Evolution of Beauty written by Richard O. Prum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.

The Rational Animal

Author : Douglas T. Kenrick
Publisher : Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN 13 : 0465032427
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rational Animal by : Douglas T. Kenrick

Download or read book The Rational Animal written by Douglas T. Kenrick and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard—only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right—or is there another possibility? In this animated tour of the inner workings of the mind, psychologist Douglas T. Kenrick and business professor Vladas Griskevicius challenge the prevailing views of decision making, and present a new alternative grounded in evolutionary science. By connecting our modern behaviors to their ancestral roots, they reveal that underneath our seemingly foolish tendencies is an exceptionally wise system of decision making. From investing money to choosing a job, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, our choices are driven by deep-seated evolutionary goals. Because each of us has multiple evolutionary goals, though, new research reveals something radical—there’s more than one “you” making decisions. Although it feels as if there is just one single “self” inside your head, your mind actually contains several different subselves, each one steering you in a different direction when it takes its turn at the controls. The Rational Animal will transform the way you think about decision making. And along the way, you’ll discover the intimate connections between ovulating strippers, Wall Street financiers, testosterone-crazed skateboarders, Steve Jobs, Elvis Presley, and you.

The Book of Humans

Author : Adam Rutherford
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN 13 : 9780297609407
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Humans by : Adam Rutherford

Download or read book The Book of Humans written by Adam Rutherford and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how many of the things once considered to be exclusively human are not: we are not the only species that communicates, makes tools, utilises fire, or has sex for reasons other than to make new versions of ourselves. Evolution has, however, allowed us to develop our culture to a level of complexity that outstrips any other observed in nature