Book Description
This ambitious, interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist and psychologist, Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention, cultural selection, and historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential and moral elements that have evolved in the human condition.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent first step.......2007-07-26
This book is no beach read. It is dense, technical, and written in a rather stiff prose style. It is, however, absolutely the best book available on the evolutionary origin of religion.
Briefly, Atran defines religion as a community's costly and hard-to-fake commitments to nonexistent beings, commitments which help to assuage existential anxieties involving death, suffering, loneliness, and so on.
Atran uses an incredibly wide array of primary sources in biology, psychology, and religious studies to make his points, and the book brims with insights, both large and small, about how human minds manufacture religion. For example, psychologists and ethnologists have commonly argued that magic in many tribal cultures represents a primitive form of thought which children also have. Atran points out that children in such societies actually believe LESS in magical explanations than their elders. His discussion of divination is also quite insightful.
On the downside, this book is pitched at a rather general, ahistorical level. There is little discussion, for example, of the differences between tribal religions and religions which have had much longer written histories, such as Zen Buddhism and American Protestantism. This is perhaps unavoidable in a book on such a large topic, particularly when this book applies a relatively new sort of explanation to this topic.
Also nice would have been more on how prayer, meditation, and other techniques are used in religion, or about how and why different religions (e.g., Sufi mysticism, Church of Christ Protestantism, and shamanism) differ in the way that they do, but again, this may be expecting too much from a book that weighs less than I do.
On the whole, a superb first step on the road to explaining what human religiosity owes to our evolutionary ancestry, and a wonderful antidote to anti-religious screeds which ignore the universality and complexity of religion itself.
Defectors and norms?.......2007-04-11
Negative reviews are not popular in this venue, so I'll keep this short and sour.
I refer you to ch. 8, "Culture without mind."
I ask you to reconcile the sense of the following claims:
"There is no compelling psychological evidence for norms as packages of learned information, stored as discrete units, clustered into higher order knowledge structures, encoded as specific memory traces in neural tissue, or expressed in clearly recognized and denumerable bundels of behavior."p. 199.
"Perceived reciprocal altruism may result in a culturally stable strategy as long as defectors can be defected and excluded." p. 201
How does one define or recognize a "defector" without a clear notion of norms and their violation? But, it will be argued, the point is that the evidence used by those who identify "norms" as units of selection does not include the detail necessary to verify or falsity the the role of such norms. But the semantic nature of my objection simplify shifts focus to "defection": How can evidence insufficient to verify or falsify the role of norms do more to verify or falsify "defector detection"?
The argument of ch 8 also suggests that 'mind' is equivalent to 'computational architecture'. But current notions of computational architecture are totally inadequate to account for individual differences among any of the world's cultures. That the human mind has a "module" for organizing taxonomies of living things, suggests only that taxonomies always and everywhere are based on essences which do not change over a lifetime and which can be arranged as elements in a hierarchy of nested sets. This is true the world around. But so called modularity of mind does not enable us to distinguish the folk taxonomies of the Amazon basin from those of lowland Guatemala.
If we can't tell folk taxonomies apart, aren't we just being asked to put all the world's religions into one box labeled "minimally counter-intuitive" by-products of natural selection?
Why should that rate five stars?
Very sad.......2007-03-09
It is sad that so many in the world are saddled with the consequences of belief in gods; one hopes that this book will enlighten! It is fairly hard work but worth it.
Thoughtful analysis of the origin of religious beliefs.......2007-03-08
There have been a slew of recent books by scientists on religion which fall basically into two camps. The first, exemplified by Sam Harris' "The End of Faith," are essentially attacks on the logical plausibility of the major religious belief systems. For those who have already realized that these sorts of beliefs are absurd, such works are entertaining but are a bit like preaching to the choir, if you'll excuse the metaphor. The second camp, exemplified by Pascal Boyer's "Religion Explained," are attempts at explaining WHY people believe in such absurdities, from the perspectives of cognitive neuropsychology and anthropology. Atran's book is in the latter camp, and in fact overlaps to some extent with Boyer's book, published at about the same time, although each author has unique insights. I especially liked Atran's analysis of the origin of beliefs in the supernatural as stemming from a cognitive module predisposed to interpret environmental stimuli as coming from a potential predator, and I also found his analysis of "meme theory" to be enlightening (he strongly discounts it). Atran's book is the harder to read of the two and is largely missing the dry sense of humor in Boyer's book, which is why I docked it one star. I also disagree with the pessimism in Atran's last chapter about why religions are likely to endure indefinitely; I believe the secular trends present especially since Darwin must ultimately prevail. But his book is certainly a valuable contribution to the discussion of the origins of religious thought and behavior, which is of paramount importance in understanding today's world of religious fanaticism.
Simply the best book on a charged and intricate topic.......2007-02-01
The topic of Atran's book has recently received a lot of attention, primarily because of the publication of Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" and Richard Dawkins' bestselling "The God Delusion".
I have just finished teaching a graduate course on evolutionary perspectives on religion, and have fewer doubts than ever that Atran has written by far the best book on the topic. In terms of explanatory structure his theory is more detailed and precise than any of the competitors.
While Atran says openly that he is an atheist, he tries to keep his discussion neutral, and his book is devoid of the polemical tone of Dawkins and Dennett. Yet, paradoxically, his approach has interesting implications for dealing with religious fundamentalism on a political level.
Even though "In Gods we Trust" is an unabashedly scientific book, it is well written and accessible to informed lay-people. I also recommend viewing the interchanges of Atran and Sam Harris ("The End of Faith")during the recent "Beyond Belief" conference either on youtube or (written) on the "Edge" website.
Average customer rating:
- An important introduction to evolutionary psychology
- Evolution from Several Vantages
- A fresh start
- Great work
- More Tooby & Cosmides, please
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The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture
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Similar Items:
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Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (3rd Edition)
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The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology
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How the Mind Works
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Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence
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The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
ASIN: 0195101073 |
Book Description
Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.
Customer Reviews:
An important introduction to evolutionary psychology.......2007-03-17
This is one of the earliest texts in the field called Evolutionary Psychology (EP). This specialization evolved from what Edward O. Wilson termed "Sociobiology" in the mid-1970s. EP applies the logic of sociobiology to human psychology. That is, how has natural selection shaped how humans think and make decisions? As editors Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, and Jerome Barkow put it (page 7): "Evolutionary psychology is psychology informed by the fact that the inherited architecture of the human mind is the product of the evolutionary process." The book, in their conceptualization, has two goals (page 3): "The first is to introduce the newly crystallizing field of evolutionary psychology to a wider audience. . .The second goal of this volume is to clarify how this new field. . .supplies the necessary connection between evolutionary biology and the complex, irreducible social and cultural phenomena studied by anthropologists, economists, and historians."
They locate their perspective by juxtaposing evolutionary psychology with what the term "the standard social scientific model." The chapter by Tooby and Cosmides (Chapter 1) outlines this model in much more detail.
As we know, the SSSM insists that, for all practical purposes, human nature - and thus human behavior - is shaped by culture. Put less laconically, the SSSM rests on three cardinal tenets - two of them explicit, the third usually implicit. These are: (1) that humans have no innate behavioral tendencies; (2) that, consequently, human nature is solely the product of learning and socialization (in short, of "nurture"); from which it follows (3) that human nature (and consequently human behavior) is essentially quite malleable (my rendering of the perspective). Of course, evolutionary psychology moves in a different direction, emphasizing the effects of the evolutionary process on human behavior and thinking.
This edited volume includes a series of chapters exploring different aspects of human behavior. The section titles illustrate the variety of topics covered: Section II focuses on cooperation and social exchange, noting that these have evolutionary bases; III examines the psychology of mating and sex; IV looks at parental care and children; V considers perception and language as evolutionary adaptations; VI takes a look at environmental aesthetics (such as evolved responses to landscapes); VII has only one chapter--looking at the evolution of psychodynamic mechanisms. The volume closes with an essay by Jerome Barkow.
Not all readers will be convinced by the arguments raised in this volume. However, it serves an important purpose by unapologetically claiming that we cannot understand much of human psychology (and other social behaviors) without considering human evolution. Indeed, it is hard to complain about this overarching perspective. However, readers may well dispute specific applications of the perspective. In the end, this is a rich volume and will prod the reader to think differently about "human nature."
Evolution from Several Vantages.......2002-06-10
This book is a massive tome on evolutionary factors that influence human behavior. It begins with clarification of the kind of Darwinism the authors appeal to, so that everyone is on the same page, and considers the general psychological foundations of Darwinism on culture.
The book then moves on to discuss cognitive adaptations for social exchange, citing human and non-human examples. The book also includes the evolutionary psychology of mating and sex, examining preferences for mate selection and competition, mechanisms for sexual attraction, and the evolutionary use of women as chattel (something any Old Testament and Quran reader can relate to).
A significant portion of the book is devoted to parental care and children, examining how pregnancy sickness, patterns between twins, maternal-infant vocalizations, and child play in the form of chasing each other are all evolutionary mechanisms that continue to be featured.
Steven Pinker adds an essay on natural language and natural selection; Roger Shepard contributes an essay on the man's perceptual adaptation to the natural world; both of which demonstrate the interconnectedness between perception, language, and adaptation.
The book concludes with some of its most esoteric issues: environmental aesthetics, intrapsychic processes, and the theoretical implications of culural phenomena.
The whole book, while not necessarily over-academic, is ultimately dense reading. Most of the concepts and conceptualizations require mental work to apprehend, while the statistics and empirical evidence are clearly described. While drawing from many disparate areas of evolutionary biology, all the essays find their ultimate significance in how the mind, in particular, has adapted to environmental forces. A demanding, but facinating, read.
A fresh start.......2000-04-26
The argument - and it is an argument - is that human behaviour is strongly influenced by evolved psychological mechanisms, and that those mechanisms are numerous and specific, rather than just one general learning mechanism - ie a human baby comes with an installed operating system and quite a lot of free software, and is definitely not a blank slate. What makes the argument persuasive is the attempt to import the scientific method - hypotheses falsifiable by experiment - to an area previously characterised by mumbojumbo and pseudoscience. Not all the attempts are successful, but as they say it's a start. 100 years late (for psychology) it is saying (a) the brain is an organ so it must have evolved too - let's think about it in a Darwinian fashion and (b) let's try to make pyschology a science not a humanity. It is potentially very offensive to existing psychology practitioners, because it implies that most existing psychologists are witch doctors. It is also very offensive to large bodies of public policy wonks (let's not beat about the bush here - in American speak this book is very offensive to liberal Democrats), essentially saying that most of the "science" behind social and educational policy has no foundation. And because it is polemical - it is shooting at a century of vested interests after all - it overstates its case in some places, although the writers are usually very careful to stress that while behavioural programmes may be partly pre installed, behaviour itself is not hardwired.
It was the start for me of looking at the way we think in a completely different light and led me to later, more detailed, more balanced statements of the case.
It is pretty hard going in places, particularly as they do rather tiresomely go out of their way trying to avoid giving direct offence, but they're not fooling anyone (not mss67 for a start.)But in reality they are yelling that the Emperor ("learning/nurture is all") has no clothes. For all its faults it's the book that has most influenced my thinking in the last 10 years, and definitely a five star performance.
Great work.......2000-03-22
Finally, a branch of psychology which does not use the standard psycho-babble which distorted our views of human-kind in the 20th century.
More Tooby & Cosmides, please.......2000-02-07
I was prompted to respond by the review from the individual in Virginia. He or she didn't like the Tooby & Cosmides chapters whereas I feel they were by far the most interesting chapters in the book. Reading their long essay (Chapter 2)is one of the best favors psychologists can do for themselves. Being a psychology major, I know that I was often confused about psychology before reading it, but their combination of cognitive psychology with evolutionary biology finally gave me an idea of where psychology should be going in the future. If only social psychologists and domain-general cognitive psychologists would read it, their research and approach might not be so sterile and boring. My only regret is that the book contained some chapters that were not as strong as the early chapters, but the importance of the good chapters greatly outweighs any weaknesses in the other ones.
Average customer rating:
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Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior
Sara J. Shettleworth
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Cognitive Ecology: The Evolutionary Ecology of Information Processing and Decision Making
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ASIN: 019511048X |
Book Description
How do animals perceive the world, learn, remember, search for food or mates, and find their way around? Do any non-human animals count, imitate one another, use a language, or think as we do? What use is cognition in nature and how might it have evolved? Historically, research on such questions has been fragmented between psychology, where the emphasis has been on theoretical models and lab experiments, and biology, where studies focus on evolution and the adaptive use of perception, learning, and decision-making in the field. Cognition, Evolution and the Study of Behavior integrates research from psychology, behavioral ecology, and ethology in a wide-ranging synthesis of theory and research about animal cognition in the broadest sense, from species-specific adaptations in fish to cognitive mapping in rats and honeybees to theories of mind for chimpanzees. As a major contribution to the emerging discipline of comparative cognition, the book is an invaluable resource for all students and researchers in psychology, zoology, and behavioral neuroscience. It will also interest general readers curious about the details of how and why animals--including humans--process, retain, and use information as they do.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic.......2003-01-28
This was the required textbook for a class on Animal Intelligence at the University of Kansas. Contained various examples from a broad range of animal intelligence. Illustrated quite well how little we know about intelligence.
Book Description
Ambitious and elegant, this book builds a bridge between evolutionary theory and cultural psychology. Michael Tomasello is one of the very few people to have done systematic research on the cognitive capacities of both nonhuman primates and human children. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition identifies what the differences are, and suggests where they might have come from.
Tomasello argues that the roots of the human capacity for symbol-based culture, and the kind of psychological development that takes place within it, are based in a cluster of uniquely human cognitive capacities that emerge early in human ontogeny. These include capacities for sharing attention with other persons; for understanding that others have intentions of their own; and for imitating, not just what someone else does, but what someone else has intended to do. In his discussions of language, symbolic representation, and cognitive development, Tomasello describes with authority and ingenuity the "ratchet effect" of these capacities working over evolutionary and historical time to create the kind of cultural artifacts and settings within which each new generation of children develops. He also proposes a novel hypothesis, based on processes of social cognition and cultural evolution, about what makes the cognitive representations of humans different from those of other primates.
Lucid, erudite, and passionate, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition will be essential reading for developmental psychology, animal behavior, and cultural psychology.
Customer Reviews:
Essential.......2006-08-17
Essential reading for all fans of the human brain, especially for those who think it's sufficient to read Steven Pinker on the subject.
Poorly thought out... to say the least........2005-09-27
I read this book as a course requirement for a Developmental Psychology class while at university. I was heavily critical of it, and as a result got off to a bad start with the professor.
Tomasello's inability to write engaging and manageable prose is his first problem (his over use of the word "conspecific" was such that I wanted to slit my own wrists everytime I read it). The second more important is that this book fails to answer the most fundamental of the questions which it addresses. That question being, what is the spark? The catalyst? Or as he refer's to it "the magic bullet". Simply, what was it that promted social learning in primitive ancestral human societies, and peer groups? In the beginning chapters, he writes as though this book is the definitive answer and then forgets about it past chapter 1. If you'll forgive the pun, he dodges the bullet completely and leaves us exactly where we started.
Those being the two major issues I had with the book are reason enough to recommend that you not read it, unless otherwise forced to by professors who thinks the sun shine's out of Tomasello's hind end. The other problems include narrow views of certain questions, and failing to address alternative answers.
Trust me, there are much better Evolutionary Psychology books available. This one needs to be placed in the 'Useless' section right along with "Dianetics".
Cutting-edge evolutionary psychology.......2005-02-11
This book is marvellous, and is now being used in more recent work on the evolutionary origins of language and social institutions. Tomasello has done an enormous amount of empirical research to support his points, and also has a good theory background (Vygotsky's ideas on the social nature of learning, for example). More recent work in this field often either uses Tomasello's work or parallels his ideas--see for example Terrence W. Deacon's book The Symbolic Species or Greenspan and Shanker's book The First Idea. Tomasello's book does an excellent job of debunking older ideas that the human mind MUST be hardwired for language and other aspects of culture (e.g., Stephen Mithen's ideas of cognitive modules in the phylogenesis of religion). A splendid book, and not difficult at all to read.
The Essential Ingredient.......2002-09-25
This is the best account of cognitive development in human beings I've read, and as a psychoanalyst I've read quite a few. Tomasello focuses on the essential difference between human children and our closest relatives among the great apes. This is the ability to imagine that another creature has a mind with intentions and with plans to fulfill those intentions. From this capability follows the human infant's unique capacity to track the behavior of adults and to reconstruct their thoughts and intentions from their observed actions. Apes can make accurate predictions by watching what other apes do. They can emulate those actions in a general way, but they cannot imagine what the other ape is trying to do, or that there might in fact be other ways of doing whatever that is. As Tomasello shows, without a model of the other creature's intentions,it is impossible to appreciate and imitate the fine details of his actions. It is also impossible to build a cumulative model that relates one set of actions with another to form a larger scheme of mental activity.
Tomasello shows how the entire structure of shared ideas and artifacts that we call culture rests on this uniquely human cogitive achievement. His descriptions of the steps and stages in the evolving interaction between the child and its caretakers make this progressive development crystal clear. His account of languge acquisition is unusually good. He shows, for example, that words do not simply label objects but identify them through the particular aspects they display in a variety of meaningful contexts. Language introduces perspective, allowing the infant to see the world without the exclusive bias of his own immediate needs.
Tomasello's writing doesn't waste any words, but maintains a tone of empathy and understanding that makes the book a pleasure to read. I think it will prove invaluable to any educator or clinician concerned with understanding the receptivity to learning of either children or adults.
Convincing and provocative work.......2001-06-11
Tomasello's work convincingly elucidates the roles of attention and intention discovery amongst infants in the acquisition of language. He enables us to dispense with ideas of linguistic modules, of "innateness" with respect to human speech acquisition. The key, in his thesis, is the human awareness of intention, and it's the emergence of this in infants at around 9 months which provides the basis for language comprehension (ultimately). A very enjoyable and persuasive text - strongly recommended to anyone interested in the origins of human language (on a species and individual basis).
Book Description
Since Darwin we have known that evolution has shaped all organisms and that biological organs--including the brain and the highly crafted animal nervous system--are subject to the pressures of natural and sexual selection. It is only relatively recently, however, that the cognitive neurosciences have begun to apply evolutionary theory and methods to the study of brain and behavior. This landmark reference documents and defines the emerging field of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience. Chapters by leading researchers demonstrate the power of the evolutionary perspective to yield new data, theory, and insights on the evolution and functional modularity of the brain.
Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience covers all areas of cognitive neuroscience, from nonhuman brain-behavior relationships to human cognition and consciousness, and each section of Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience addresses a different adaptive problem. After an introductory section that outlines the basic tenets of both theory and methodology of an evolutionarily informed cognitive neuroscience, the book treats neuroanatomy from ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspectives and explores reproduction and kin recognition, spatial cognition and language, and self-awareness and social cognition. Notable findings include a theory to explain the extended ontogenetic and brain development periods of big-brained organisms, fMRI research on the neural correlates of romantic attraction, an evolutionary view of sex differences in spatial cognition, a theory of language evolution that draws on recent research on mirror neurons, and evidence for a rudimentary theory of mind in nonhuman primates. A final section discusses the ethical implications of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience and the future of the field.
Contributors:
C. Davison Ankney, Simon Baron-Cohen, S. Marc Breedlove, William Christiana, Michael Corballis, Robin I. M. Dunbar, Russell Fernald, Helen Fisher, Jonathan Flombaum, Farah Focquaert, Steven J. C. Gaulin, Aaron Goetz, Kevin Guise, Ruben C. Gur, William D. Hopkins, Farzin Irani, Julian Paul Keenan, Michael Kimberly, Stephen Kosslyn, Sarah L. Levin, Lori Marino, David Newlin, Ivan S. Panyavin, Shilpa Patel, Webb Phillips, Steven M. Platek, David Andrew Puts, Katie Rodak, J. Philippe Rushton, Laurie Santos, Todd K. Shackelford, Kyra Singh, Sean T. Stevens, Valerie Stone, Jaime W. Thomson, Gina Volshteyn, Paul Root Wolpe
Customer Reviews:
diverse topics for an exciting science.......2007-08-04
It is an exciting time in neuroscience. As the realisation dawned in recent years that evolutionary ideas can be fruitfully applied to the brains of various species. Along with the experimental tools that enable the testing of useful models of the brain.
The book's diversity of papers reflects accurately the intellectual ferment. One example might be the rise of evolutionary game theory. Standard game theory arose with von Neumman and others, and was originally only applied to human subjects. But a chapter on SPFit delves into how players evolve in geological time, optimising their reproductive odds. Thus the promise is to see how behaviour can be explained in the context of playing a long game.
Another very topical issue in the book is mirror neurons. Covered all too briefly here, given the amount of research that is ongoing. If there will ever be another edition of this book, perhaps more space could be allocated to it?
Average customer rating:
- EOC -- Brings Animal Cognition to the forefront.
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The Evolution of Communication (Bradford Books)
Marc D. Hauser
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262581558 |
Book Description
Bound to become a classic and to stimulate debate and research, The Evolution of Communication looks at species in their natural environments as a way to begin to understand what the real units of analysis of communicating systems are, using arguments about design and function to illuminate both the origin and subsequent evolution of each system. It lights the way for a research program that seriously addresses the problem of how communication systems, including language, have been designed over the course of evolution.
Customer Reviews:
EOC -- Brings Animal Cognition to the forefront........2000-03-30
The Evolution of Communication gives a distintive opinion of evolutionary psychology, animal cognition, and cognitive neuroscience. Easy to read and understand, many of the hypotheses and comments of Marc Hauser are now being applied to larger academic issues, such as the "concept acquisition" problem in philosophy. The strengths of this book lie in its overarching predictions, and the supplemental and thorough examples.
Book Description
Oxford presents, in one convenient and coherently organized volume, 20 influential but until now relatively inaccessible articles that form the backbone of Boyd and Richerson's path-breaking work on evolution and culture. Their interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that culture is crucial for understanding human behavior; unlike other organisms, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes, and values heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are deeply intertwined with our biology. Culture then is a pool of information, stored in the brains of the population that gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning processes. Therefore, culture can account for both our outstanding ecological success as well as the maladaptations that characterize much of human behavior. The interest in this collection will span anthropology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science.
Customer Reviews:
The Baldwin effect writ large.......2007-05-15
Over a hundred years ago, James Baldwin posited that through the development of a good trick individuals could give themselves a survival advantage over individuals lacking such a good trick.
As a simple illustration, monkeys using sticks to extract ants from an anthill would have an advantage over monkeys who fail to use such a tool. Likewise, vampire bats who share their evening take with less successful bats and thereby are reciprocated on nights when they themselves are unsuccessful at the hunt would be another example.
Significantly, through culture, human opportunities to acquire knowledge of useful tools and acquire society through which to obtain reciprocal benefits have sort of created a Baldwin effect writ large...an uber good trick that has enabled them to populate pretty much every biosphere on the planet.
This book is a very articulated discussion of the delicate calculus of this process in human society propogated on all levels...from the reasons for its origins to comparisons in interdisciplinary study of its findings.
Relevant to law, economics and religious studies, it's a significant and helpful read.
Bridgeing natural and social sciences: the case of cultural evolution.......2006-07-06
This book is a splendid and well-organised collection of papers in which the authors developed and argued for their understanding and explanation of humans and human societies. This theory is known as the theory of dual inheritance.
The book consists of 5 parts: the evolution of social learning; ethnic groups and markers; human cooperation, reciprocity and group selection; archaeology and culture history; and finally links to other disciplines.
Being a social scientist whose interest in long-term historical processes increasingly stretched out until it comprised the evolution of hominids and homines and who learnt a lot of the biological and archaeological part of the story from books by Robert Boyd and colleagues, this book adds a kind of finishing touch.
From other work by Boyd I learnt that there are alternatives or rather extensions to socio-biology and evolutionary psychology that preserve a lot of sociological wisdom on the nature and mechanisms of institutional change. The key is that cultural change, which is predicated on the evolutionary acquired capacities to (observational) learning and cooperation by mostly credulous beings, can lead to cumulative adaptive changes which could not have been caused by natural selection.
Robert Boyd and Joan B. Silk, How Humans Evolved, W.W. Norton & Company, New York. London, 2003, 3rd ed.) already convinced me of the wisdom and validity of the approach. The most attractive feature of the book under review here lies in the fact that the ideas put forward and explained in the Boyd-Silk textbook can be found argued in a much more detail and scientific finesse.
In my view the book is indispensable for social scientists trying to find their way in the controversies that still surround this important field of intellectual endeavours
One personal note: I still do not completely understand the following enigmatic paragraph in Boyd and Silk (2003, p. 475):
"If aging is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, there will be many synchronized causes of aging.
Organisms are complex systems with many different, partially independent subsystems, each potentially subject to aging. The kinds of failures leading to aging of the teeth are likely to be quite different from the kinds of failures leading to aging of the heart, eye, or brain.
To see why these processes should be synchronized, suppose that one cause of aging, such as heart disease, acts at much earlier ages than all of the other causes of aging.
Then selection would either favor the postponement of the expression of genes that cause heart disease so that heart disease becomes synchronized with other forms of aging, or it would favor earlier action of all the other causes of aging, so that they become synchronized with heart disease.
In either case selection would cause all forms of aging to occur simultaneously.
Thus if aging, is due to antagonistic pleiotropy, it is unlikely that curing one, or only a few processes would lead to indefinitely long life."
Frans Kerstholt
Amazon.com
In Figments of Reality, mathematician Ian Stewart and biologist Jack Cohen's thesis (or schtick) is that human minds are produced by complicity between human brains and culture. In their earlier book The Collapse of Chaos, Stewart and Cohen used the power of Humpty Dumpty to redefine complicity to mean properties that emerge from the mutual interaction of complex systems. "Our minds, our societies, our cultures, and our global multiculture, are all evolving within a reality that we mould in images of our own creation. We are a figment of reality--but reality is increasingly a figment of us."
Reality is not the only figment in the book. Stewart and Cohen use a group of eight "weird alien beings from the planet Zarathustra, resembling fluffy yellow ostriches but with much stranger habits" as a sounding board, as comedy relief, and as a philosophical-experimental playpen. To quote:
"Ringmaster: What is this?
Liar-to-children [=teacher]: A continuing educational narrative of some kind, Ringmaster. Based upon a revered/reviled (delete whichever is inapplicable) ancient text. [Watches the screen and interprets the tale that unfolds--a long and dramatic story of an exploding universe, elements born in stars, complex carbon-based molecular machines, a doubly-helical genetic molecule, the origins of life, evolution, sense organs, brains, minds, and intelligence.]
R: What a fascinating narrative.
LtC: And such a convincing story.
Destroyer-of-facts [=scientist]: Such vigor and power! Such unified scientific insight!
R: Not a word out of place, no loose ends--amazing!
ALL: [In unison] Must be wrong, then."
Read it and think, read it and giggle, read it and come back for more. At long last, a worthy successor to Gödel, Escher, Bach, updated, twisted, and put through a Monty Python filter.
Book Description
Peppered with wit and controversial topics, this is a refreshing new look at the co-evolution of mind and culture. Bestselling authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen (The Collapse of Chaos, 1994) eloquently argue that our minds evolved within an inextricable link with culture and language. They go beyond conventional views of the function and purpose of the mind to look at the ways that the mind is the response of an evolving brain that is constantly adjusting to a complex environment. Along the way they develop new and intriguing insights into the nature of evolution, science, and humanity that will challenge conventional views on consciousness. The esteemed authors tantalize the reader with these bold new outlooks while putting a revolutionary spin on such classic philosophical problems as the nature of free will and the essence of humanity. This clearly written and enjoyable book will inspire any educated reader to critically evaluate the existing notions of the nature of the human mind.
Book Description
Thought in a Hostile World is an exploration of the evolution of cognition, especially human cognition, by one of today's foremost philosophers of biology and of mind.The central idea of the book is that thought is a response to threat. Competitors and enemies make life hard by their direct physical effects. But they also make life hard by eroding epistemic conditions. They lie. They hide themselves. They seem other than what they are.Sterelny uses this and related ideas to explore from an evolutionary perspective the relationship between folk psychology and an integrated scientific conception of human cognition. In the process, he examines how and why human minds have evolved. The book argues that humans are cognitively, socially, and sexually very unlike the other great apes, and that despite our relatively recent separation from their lineages, human social and cognitive evolution has been driven by unusual evolutionary mechanisms. In developing his own picture of the descent of the human mind, Sterelny further offers a critique of nativist, modular versions of evolutionary psychology.This volume will be of vital interest to scholars and students interested in cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and evolutionary psychology.
Customer Reviews:
meaningful progress in biological understanding..........2007-02-18
On pages 148-9 (paperback), Sterelny writes--
"Once we appreciate the significance of ecological engineering, our conception of natural selction and evolution is transformed. Natural selection is often conceived as a process by which lineages are shaped to fit the environments in which they live, as a key-cutter shapes a key to a lock. Organisms respond to environmental challenges by adapting to new conditions, becoming more fire-proof or drought resistant. This picture is sometimes appropriate. ... But often it is not. Lineages can respond to environmental challenges in two other ways. They can respond spatially by tracking their preferred conditons. And they can resond as ecological engineers, by modifying their own environments to buffer or transform the ways they are affected by their physical, biological and social environments. ... Some lineages partially construct their own niches. They are envronmental engineers."
There is a footnote here that reads--
"These ideas were first developed by Richard Lewontin (1978, 1982, 1985), but see also Brandon 1990; Jones et al. 1997, More recently they have been most systematically developed by Kevin Laland, John Odling-Smee, and their colleagues; see Odling-Smee et al 1996, and especially Odling-Smee et al forthcoming. [2003]"
Sterelny goes on to situate human cogniton in this complex interation between biology and environment.
He exposes the systemic weaknesses in both evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology.
What I most appreciated in Sterelny is his sincere concern for explanation. He has no ideological axe to grind in this book. This quality is most encouraging, and I look forward to discovering more work of this kind.
Investigation of philo of mind has never been so thrilling.......2006-09-09
The previous reviewer is exactly right. The book is incredible. The book is, as of this review date, the latest in a quickly changing field of understanding mind naturalistically through the latest research in biology. Sterelny and Peter Godfrey-Smith are leaders in this promising effort. Sterelny attacks his investigation of the attributes of mind from evidence from any field available. Besides the ones mentioned by the previous reviewer, Sterelny works niche construction and developmental theory. The treatment of animal cognition and early hominid evolution is exciting. I hope that the book and this direction of thought are getting the attention merited.
incredible book!.......2006-02-11
I was just checking out this site and saw that no one had written a review. I don't have time to write a full review, but let me just say: this book is incredible! Sterelny lays out the nature and history of human cognitive faculties in an easy-to-read, thorough, and well-argued way. I found the material on the evolution of cooperation, the way humans epistemically engineer their environment, and plasticity enlightening.
Average customer rating:
- Classic paper, plus plus why, PLUS where too now
- Essential reading for social scientists and others
- Yippee!!!
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Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers (Evolution and Cognition Series)
Robert Trivers
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
ASIN: 0195130626 |
Book Description
Robert Trivers is a pioneering figure in the field of sociobiology. For Natural Selection and Social Theory, he has selected eleven of his most influential papers, including several classic papers from the early 1970s on the evolution of reciprocal altruism, parent-offspring conflicts, and asymmetry in sexual selection, which helped to establish the centrality of sociobiology, as well as some of his later work on deceit in signalling, sex antagonistic genes, and imprinting. Trivers introduces each paper, setting them in their contemporary context, and critically evaluating them in the light of subsequent work and further developments. The result is a unique portrait of the intellectual development of sociobiology, with valuable insights for evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology.
Customer Reviews:
Classic paper, plus plus why, PLUS where too now.......2006-02-28
This book contains all of Robert Triver's best papers.
In addition, each is book-ended between a two short essays outlining the background to Professor Trivers' initial exploration and thinking behind the paper, often including quite intriguing sociological contexts. Then, which is extremely valuable, Triver's brings the reader up-to-date with the subsequent history of the idea in that paper: who did it influence? Does he still believe it? What is the current hot take on the area?
It is a magnificent tribute to a life-time of work, and valuable for anyone active in the area of evolution.
Essential reading for social scientists and others.......2004-02-11
This is a beautiful book. It combines seminal papers with anecdotes and a post-scripts which place the paper in their context and make it easier for those of us who have been consumers of socio-biology to better appreciate the significance of the ideas presented. Trivers is a compelling writer and this book is a true gift to anybody curious about human psyche and behaviour. Highly recommended.
Yippee!!!.......2002-11-30
Those of us who are interested in the stories behind just HOW major breakthroughs in evolutionary and ecological thought were made have been spoiled in recent years: First there was W.D. Hamilton's marvelous 2 volume NARROW ROADS OF GENE LAND, now we get Bob Triver's wonderful NATURAL SELECTION AND SOCIAL THEORY. Here, in one place, one can find most of Trivers' revolutionary work on the evolution of social behavior, and as an added bonus one also gets Trivers' unvarnished -and often highly entertaining- commentary on just how he came to put together the ideas that -love 'em or hate 'em- provided much of the driving force behind Sociobiology & ultimately lead to Behavioural Ecology and Evolutionary Psychology. Along the way we are introduced to a fascinating cast of characters, ranging from Ernst Mayr, the foremost living Darwinian, through the neo-Marxist wing of Harvard, to Huey Newton, ex-Minister of Defense for the Black Panthers. Trivers' thinking is as eclectic and far ranging as the list of his friends and enemies, and while many of his subjects (altruism, parent-offspring conflict, fluctuating asymmetry, etc.) are still at the cutting edge of evolutionary thought, his writing is sufficiently free of jargon that I think it will draw in even the non-specialist. You may not agree with everything that Trivers says here -and I suspect that some folks will be offended by his candor- but this is a really important book & I see it as essential reading for any of us interested in the question of why we may do so many of the things that we do. Bravo!
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