Book Description
Marc Hauser's eminently readable and comprehensive book Moral Minds is revolutionary. He argues that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct, unconsciously propelling us to deliver judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Experience tunes up our moral actions, guiding what we do as opposed to how we deliver our moral verdicts.
For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that moral judgments arise from rational and voluntary deliberations about what ought to be. The common belief today is that we reach moral decisions by consciously reasoning from principled explanations of what society determines is right or wrong. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is founded entirely on experience and education, developing slowly and subject to considerable variation across cultures. In his groundbreaking book, Hauser shows that this dominant view is illusory.
Combining his own cutting-edge research with findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, he examines the implications of his theory for issues of bioethics, religion, law, and our everyday lives.
Customer Reviews:
Natural Morality.......2007-09-17
Over the last decade the study of the human brain has moved out of the leafy halls of academia into many different fields, including ethics and the law. If socially unacceptable behavior is being driven by some wiring problem in the brain, is a person legally liable? Or is the brain just one part of the chain of causes with learning and experience playing a larger part? The lion's share of the evidence indicates that genes and the brain determine how we interact with the environment rather than determining how we behave, but there is still a great deal of research that needs to be done.
This book has been getting a lot of attention and for a very good reason: not only is it a well-written account by someone who is an exceptionally clear thinker, but the implications of his book stretch far beyond simple academic discussions: they have implications not only for neuroscience, but for ethics, spirituality and the law.
Marc Hauser is a biologist at Harvard and in this book he argues that the human moral sense is inbuilt and the product of evolution, much like our capacity for language. He suggests that the structure of our minds - or at least our brains - reflect our egalitarian hunter-gatherer past and reveals "left over circuitry from the cavemen."
Hauser begins by contrasting three approaches to moral thinking:
The first was espoused by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, who proposed that we follow a categorical imperative. In Kant's view, we could and should live by the Golden Rule, treating others as we would have them treat us, and never using people merely as a means to something else.
The second approach was proposed by the eighteen century Scottish philosopher David Hume, who came to the conclusion that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions. So if we do something because we are frustrated or angry, we should be castigated and punished because we failed to express out true nature.
The third approach is that of the political philosopher John Rawls. Rawls - like the Harvard linguist Noam Chomsky - proposed that there are deep similarities between language and morality. Chomsky believes that we are hardwired to understand and produce language, while Rawls believes that we all have an innate moral faculty. What that means is that we are all born with an ability to form moral judgments, and that we do not simply embrace the views of our family, tribe or church. The rub is this: because it is an innate ability bred of countless millennia of evolution, we often have no idea why we hold the views they we do.
The parallels between our innate morality and language are explored in this book.
When a twenty-nine year old Chomsky produced his first book in 1957 it created a firestorm of protest as well as some enthusiastic acceptance. We know that people the world over utter grammatical sentences in their own language, but it had been assumed that it began as simple mimicry: children copied the language, syntax and grammar of their parents and others. But Chomsky proposed that the ability is hardwired into the structure of the brain, and that is why we have little or no insight into how grammar works. By analogy, Hauser proposes that children and adults construct moral codes and make judgments without any insight into their reasons for doing so.
Hauser is an acclaimed academic, and it is no surprise that he supports his hypothesis with an array of thought-provoking examples, some better known than others.
One of the better known has been used in psychology and philosophy classes for years. It is the Trolley Problem, taken from a classic set of moral dilemmas proposed by the philosopher Phillipa Foot. The story goes like this. A bystander named Denise is a passenger on an out-of-control railway trolley, which is speeding down the track with an incapacitated driver. The vehicle is heading directly toward five people on the track ahead, bringing with it certain death. Denise can flip a switch that would turn the trolley onto a sidetrack with just one person on it. That one person will die, saving the other five. Should she flip the switch? Hauser's own intuition is that she should, and he marshals various moral arguments to support him.
But now comes the second part. Consider another bystander named Frank. He is on a footbridge over the same railway trolley with the same five endangered people. On the bridge is a large man whom Frank can push off the bridge and so stop the trolley and save the five. Should he do so? Should he sacrifice one man to save five?
Here Hauser's view is that he should not. But exactly why not? Is it because of Denise and Frank's intentions? Is it because Frank would be using the man as a means? In each case the result is the same, one person is killed and five are saved. This is interesting, not as an academic exercise, but because most people come up with similar responses to the dilemma.
Here is another example: what if a surgeon can save the lives of five dying people by taking organs from one perfectly healthy person? Almost no one says that this action is justified, but why not? In fact when such a thing was actually done during the Holocaust, the prosecutors at Nuremberg considered it to be one of the most egregious of all the crimes committed. The utter breakdown of agreed moral norms during those dark years and continuing depravity in some parts of the world remains a challenge for philosophers and scientists to this day; including the author of this book.
Hauser is evidently a good teacher, and he constructs a number of variations of these themes to show us that, with the kinds of exceptions that I just mentioned, the intuitions of very different people are usually much the same. Second. He shows how difficult it is to provide logical justifications for those intuitions. Like all good teachers he includes some personal disclosures, and tells an amusing tale about his own father, who, despite being an intelligent and well-educated physicist, became confused and frustrated when he tried to find logical justifications for his immediate responses.
Hauser reviews evidence from different cultures and from his own research using an online Moral Sense Test, to show how little judgments vary between people of different backgrounds and cultures.
This leads to another important similarity between language and morality. Languages are not chaotic: they follow certain constraints. All known languages follow a set of universal principles. But there are also a set of variable parameters that include the order of words, different ways of making plurals, gender attributions and all those other nuances that can frustrate anyone trying to master a foreign language. Hauser argues that it is the same with morality: there are universal principles and culture-bound parameters. He continues the parallels to point out that as with a language, once people acquire their specific moral grammar, other grammars may seem as incomprehensible as does Japanese to a native English speaker.
He illustrates his thesis with valuable discussions about murder and manslaughter, the treatment of women in different cultures, attitudes to abortion, euthanasia, pedophilia and incest, together with notions of fairness and punishment.
The book is illustrated by some delightful little drawings that do an excellent job of breaking up the narrative.
Marc Hauser if a very good writer and the book is not a difficult read, despite weighing in at over 400 closely reasoned pages. He makes many points that need to be heard. Not only by his colleagues and by people curious to understand more about themselves and those around them, but also by politicians, lawyers and ethicists.
Highly recommended.
Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life
A poor collection of sophomoric philosophy.......2007-04-01
In a grand way Marc Hauser represents centuries of philosophy intermingled with anecdotes from psychological, anthropological, and economic research. Unfortunately, what he doesn't do is provide a scientific grounding for understanding moral choice.
To understand why people call things right and wrong you need to start with the biology of learning, expectation, and cognition. Given that we are just barely now scratching the surface of these topics Hauser's attempt was bound to fail. His own morals pervade the book and act as logical starting points for his arguments, but rarely does he act as a scientist and dismiss his own morality to seek out the real question which is, "How does the brain create a sense of right and wrong, and is there any definitive proof that there is a universal biological morality?"
Neuroscience tells us that there are very few things we are hardwired to do that we cannot unlearn or adapt to deal with our environments. Hauser spectacularly fails to convince that any moral code is anything other than a learned societal norm.
great idea, poor execution.......2007-03-31
I agree with Rick: great idea, poor execution. Various moral and social systems have long tried to codify and explain away through religious and other naratives what is only natural to us. Kudos to Mark Hauser for bringing our innate "moral organ" to broad attention.
His writing however is another matter. I suggest, read his introductory chapter "What Is Wrong?" and then cherry-pick from the rest of the book as much of the following material is highly repetitive. This is topic waiting to be tackled again by another, stronger writer.
Placing morals into the biological realm where they belong.......2007-03-23
This book affirms something that I have thought true for some time now - that morality is governed by instinctual paradigms in healthy individuals. Hearing from birth and from right-wing sources on the news daily that our morality can only be saved by a reversion to "biblical" mores, I had always wondered why the statistics do not back this "moral majority" up. For instance, in countries like Sweden and Iceland and many other European nations where secularism is high, they have much lower rates of crime and their citizens are just as happy if not more so than the average Sunday-bible-toting-American who thinks they have a "higher" version of morality than the "godless heathen."
Hauser cites empirical data that shows that morality is often operating at an unconscious level in human beings as evidenced by tests where subjects make a moral choice but then can offer only incoherent justifications. Hauser's parallel to our "Language Instinct" here is spot on, given that most native speakers can form perfectly grammatical sentences, but if asked about detailed grammatical structures and relationships, they fail miserably. This, I think, is one reason that religion enjoys its ascendant status (at least in America) in regards to morality. Religion is an overt manifestation of moral principles, something people otherwise have little or no conscious access to. It doesn't matter how outdated or ridiculous religious "morals" are, people will cling to them because in their minds it is the only available source of a description of morality. The faster that science can describe these principles, the better off humanity will be.
Taking in relevant topics from moral philosophy, economics, psychology, and of course, the meat of his argument, socio-biological findings from our primate and animal cousins, Hauser shows that the precursors of human morality, at least in rudimentary form, are present in many other animals. This presence gives science a strong foothold in the arena of ethics. These findings must be to the chagrin of such writers as Francis Collins who invoked the god of the gaps in "The Language of God" to explain that human morality must be due to divine fiat. Indeed it is not.
It's just not written well.......2007-03-21
I got this book after hearing Hauser give a very illluminating and fascinating interview on NPR. Sadly his book is not as nearly interesting as his interview technique is. He repeats his thesis into the ground many times. His clever examples are sometimes not so clever. The book is too long and wordy. Being a lover of philosophy, I of all people never thought I would say that about a book. That can be a good thing in capable hands, but Hauser is definitely a scientist and not a writer. Some better editing and tightening of the text would've made this book a real winner. Finally, the link to linguistics, a main theme of the book, is a turn off for me personally as the linguistics field in no way interests me. However, one refreshing aspect is that he amdits its a theory. Sometimes I feel contemporary science books are too ready to start claiming themselves to be fact. Only get it if you can find it cheap, and hopefully Hausers honesty, enthusiasm and knowledge will get you past the poor writing, sadly it wasn't the case for me.
Book Description
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book.......2007-03-27
I can't add very much to the excellent reviews already posted. I'll just say quickly that I enjoyed very much the fresh insight into mating practices among the "lower animals" and among humans. I've read a lot about evolution and biology and so forth, and still found much new material here. I really enjoyed learning about how scientists finally discovered the rampant adultery among birds and how incredible they are at hiding it.
Several reviewers warn about having to "make it through" the first part, and I certainly understand that if your primary interest is in the evolutionary origins of human sexuality. However, I really enjoyed the first part as well, because it provides a broad understanding of sex in evolution and give lots of fun examples about different behaviors and adaptations.
Although I didn't give the book 5 stars (I reserve that for the best of the best), it showed me that Mr. Ridley is a great writer and I'll check out his other books (I think I'll start with Genome).
Worth slogging through Part 1 to get to Part 2.......2007-01-30
Some of the ideas expressed in The Red Queen are brilliant, and their applicability to the nature of human sexuality are quite interesting. However, Ridley's very methodical approach to categorizing and cataloging the varieties during the first 120-150 pages can be painfully slow.
Once Part II kicked in, I was glad I persevered. After the first part apparently sets the stage for some descriptions related to human beings, I found myself unable to put the book down during second half. No need to add on to what has been written by others, but if I had to do it again, I definitely would have skimmed Part 1.
Still worth the effort and quite a conversation piece. In the month since I finished, I find I bring it up in casual conversation regularly, and even during the course of book club conversations about male and female perspectives to similar actions, perceptions, or mating rituals. Definitely recommended!
So interesting..........2006-12-14
I remember flying on an airplane 6 years ago and having the stranger sitting next to me highly recommend this book. It ended up taking me three years before I finally obtained a copy!
This book is phenomenal. Starting from the first organisms on the planet and building up to modern day human beings, this book gives a detailed account of evolution and covers numerous theories, supported in great detail, as to how humans are they way we are.
The only reason this book gets 4 stars from me is because it is written in text book language and it can be hard to follow at some points. But stick with it - the end of the book is where most of the interesting points emerge.
The implications to the future human civilization are staggering.......2006-11-10
Science writer Matt Ridley's book "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" is outstanding. I have read at least 20 other books by various authors on this subject, and yet Ridley's book contains a vast amount of original work and brilliant viewpoints.
His language is accessible, witty, and moving. His explanations and arguments are well researched, and elegantly written.
Ridley takes you on a journey, for those willing, into nature's infinite world of sexual evolution using existing species as examples. You'll end up realizing how constricted our society is in relation to our nature. The book opened my mind to how diverse our society can be, and how we limit and restrict ourselves. I find this book to be one of his best works.
Experts in every field of living systems should read this book, the implications are staggering. Although written entirely from a biological / genetic / nature point of view, anyone could use the material to develop an improved system. For example, improved political systems, draft laws that make sense, market products more successfully, understand the criminal mind-set, raise children better, better discern the cause of war and violence, etc.
In a nut-shell, if you want to understand the infinite possibility of human potential, this book gives you the "theory of operation" and should be considered the bible on how central sexuality is to the nature of humankind and our modern civilization.
Too serious / intense - Not for casual reading.......2006-11-06
This is interesting only if you want to do a very detailed study on Sex and Evolution of Human Nature. Not something I would recommend if you are just looking for some dating techniques or How to....type suggestions.
Amazon.com
Jared Diamond states the theme of his book up-front: "How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight." The Third Chimpanzee is, in many ways, a prequel to Diamond's prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. While Guns examines "the fates of human societies," this work surveys the longer sweep of human evolution, from our origin as just another chimpanzee a few million years ago. Diamond writes:
It's obvious that humans are unlike all animals. It's also obvious that we're a species of big mammal down to the minutest details of our anatomy and our molecules. That contradiction is the most fascinating feature of the human species.
The chapters in The Third Chimpanzee on the oddities of human reproductive biology were later expanded in Why Is Sex Fun? Here, they're linked to Diamond's views of human psychology and history.
Diamond is officially a physiologist at UCLA medical school, but he's also one of the best birdwatchers in the world. The current scientific consensus that "primitive" humans created ecological catastrophes in the Pacific islands, Australia, and the New World owes a great deal to his fieldwork and insight. In Diamond's view, the current global ecological crisis isn't due to modern technology per se, but to basic weaknesses in human nature. But, he says, "I'm cautiously optimistic. If we will learn from our past that I have traced, our own future may yet prove brighter than that of the other two chimpanzees." --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
The Development of an Extraordinary Species
We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.
Customer Reviews:
Tiger by the Tail?.......2007-10-08
There's a lot to this very broad ranging and thoughtful book, some of which, but not all, seems intriguingly fresh and original. Jared Diamond takes off from the recently recognized biological fact that only about 1.6% of the entire human genome separates us from the chimpanzee, making that ape our nearest living relative. Of course, Diamond notes, there is quite an obvious gap between us and our closest relatives but it's a gap, he suggests, which is not nearly as great as we're likely to imagine from surface differences -- not least, perhaps, because a significant portion of the genetic differences between us and chimps is mere genetic "noise" with little or no implications for the creatures built to its blueprint.
For Diamond the obvious implication of this narrow genetic difference obliges us to reconsider ourselves, from the outside looking in, and examine what we are as we would examine any other creature on this planet. We must, he proposes, treat humanity as what it really is: a member of the animal world. Taking his own advice, Diamond proceeds to examine the history and development of man as a visitor from another planet might, as merely one species among many. What Diamond proceeds to describe for us is the appearance and evolution of an unusually successful, exceedingly voracious primate which has the propensity to devour its own environment if left unchecked. Diamond convincingly shows how humans may have developed characteristics which have their roots in, but are still unique and different from, anything found in the rest of the animal world. In the process he points out, repeatedly, how man's historic successes have resulted in loss for our fellow species, over and over again, as one after another is hunted to extinction with the advent of modern man beginning some 50,000 years ago. Nor is this limited to other species as Diamond notes for man has a propensity for hunting and killing his own along with other creatures.
Diamond's greatest concern, in the end, seems to be for the environment which he sees being eaten away everywhere man has appeared (by now roughly the entire planet, given mankind's ubiquitous success in the competitive game of evolution). As a self-described bird-watcher, he takes his lessons from the loss of bird species in New Guinea and other exotic locales where he has applied his skills and interests. He makes some good and fascinating observations along the way including: 1) his points about how our sexual characteristics would have evolved and might have contributed to our further evolution (reflecting the need for mates to bond long term), 2) how geographic factors might have influenced variation in civilizations' technological accomplishments in the course of human societal development (Africa and the Americas exist on a north-south axis, limiting the spread and cross-pollenization of agricultural technology among human groups, while Europe, the Middle East and Asia lie on an east-west axis), 3) how unwise modern governments and scientists may be in sending signals into outer space announcing our presence (since he concludes there's no reason to doubt the operation of evolutionary competition there, too), and 4) how the dynamic of human evolution seems to have placed us on a trajectory of inevitable self-destruction.
Diamond himself notes that in many cases he did not fully develop many of the ideas presented here, reserving that for subsequent books (Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed). His main goal in this one, besides outlining some of these ideas, seems to be to galvanize his readers to embrace his strong concerns for environmentalism. He repeatedly details the destruction of pristine ecological environments which follows on the appearance of man, from the earliest ages, when men may have speedily hunted the great mammals still preserved in the fossil record to extinction, to the era of European exploration only a few centuries ago when Europeans permanently destroyed the ecological systems they found on previously untrod oceanic islands. In the interim, he blames humans for destroying the majority of the creatures that have walked the Earth since man's first appearance and warns of worse to come.
In one interesting passage he recounts how a single development of a particular site for housing resulted in the destruction and loss of many species of small creatures found nowhere else on the planet, inviting us to imagine how many times, and to what devastating effect, this has happened before in our history. But this, certainly, is the flaw in what is an otherwise compelling narrative of human development. It is certainly true that man's presence alters his environment wherever he finds himself and that that alteration is generally permanent, irrevocable and, indeed, terrible for the creatures on the receiving end. Diamond calls on us to adopt a supportive stance toward environmentalism based on this knowledge, even as he has done in his work. But the truth is that humans cannot avoid leaving a footprint wherever we tread and it is certainly true that each and every tiny corner of this earth may, and probably does, harbor various unique species if only on the microscopic level.
His advocacy for environmental awareness is certainly wise and good advice for humankind overall since it is better to preserve and nurture our environment than devour it like locusts. As far as we know, at least for now, there is only one Earth and, thus, one human home so we must attend to it. But it's unrealistic to imagine that man can avoid impacting his environment entirely or sufficiently so as to avoid displacing other species at all. That one development Diamond cites is a useful example but how many other developments, as he rightly notes, have done as much or more around the planet? We can't cease developing the world around us unless we alter our own growth trajectory and aim to diminish rather than enhance our numbers.
But diminishing the number of human beings, besides being against our natural biological imperative (to pass on our genes), intoduces the risks of civilizational breakdown and failure since fewer and fewer members of the various population groups will be called on to support more and more of the aging members of their groups. At the same time, unless all of mankind can be diminished in numbers simultaneously, there will be competition for space and resources which will see larger and more robust population groups impinging on the holdings of the diminishing groups (as we see in Europe today where an aggressive external Muslim population presses on a more inward-looking diminishing native population). This must lead to its own conflicts and disasters. Perhaps a worldwide plague or devastating war would do the trick but to what terrible effect for those living through it? And what about the tangential effects on the environments in which the self-destroying human populations are enduring plague and/or war?
Despite Diamond's important points about the human propensity to eat its own, we are chimps hanging onto an evolutionary tiger by its tail. We cannot let it go without being devoured but suspect that holding on will not be in our own best interests either. Diamond's written a good and important book here with lots of insight and new perspectives worth pondering. But he has no solution for us because, in the end, we are evolution's children. Perhaps we may grow ourselves out of this present quandary. Or perhaps not. Either way, it's certainly worthwhile reading Diamond's take on this.
SWM
Another high quality Diamond.......2007-09-29
The Third Chimpanzee is another contribution by Jared Diamond that forces people to think about man's past as well as what we are doing, and could be doing, for our future. He makes you think.
Better understanding our evolution - and our nature.......2007-09-19
Jared Diamond explains in his awesome style how we are related to the various ape species and why the chimps are our closest cousins (or rather brothers). Based on the differences and similarities between us, do we have the right to consider ourselves so much different from animals, and do we have the right not to grant at least some human rights to our closest relatives...
I'm 98% chimp.......2007-09-12
What species is most closely related to the chimp? If you guessed humans, you're right! Chimps and humans share more than 98% of the same genes. Given this fact, Jared explores human behavior and is somehow able to do this from outside of the human perspective. While we like to think of ourselves as being far above other species, Jared is careful to recognize other less flattering and uniquely human traits such as our addiction to chemical substances and our practice of genocide. The Third Chimpanzee offers a unique and balanced perspective of the human animal and the role we play in the global environment. Read this book to gain a more complete understanding of what it means to be human, where we came from, and where we might be headed.
Wonderful book by Diamond.......2007-07-12
Biologist Jared Diamond's book, originally published in 1992, doesn't have a unifying theme as in his later "Guns, Germs and Steel". Rather, we have different themes tackled in different chapters. Among those themes are the origins of the Indoeuropeans (the mysterious people, also knowns as the Aryans, from whom most Europeans and Indians descend), why Europeans were able to conquer much of the world in the last century (a subject he would later return to in Guns...), why he believes the attempts to overcome aging will fail, his skepticism about the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations (even if we are able to contact the few aliens that might exist, they might try to conquer us, he claims), the last first contacts between modern civilizations and bands of hunter gatherers still living on the Stone Age, an explanation of sexual selection and the origins of the human races, why the handicap principle bring forward by biologist Amotz Zahavi explain many seeming self-destructive behavior by human beings, an interesting overview of genocide in human history, and so forth. Diamond's environmentalism is quite radical: he believes for example, as some luddites do, that man's fall started when he switched from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Still, this is a wonderful book, enlivened by Diamond's erudition and wonderful writing.
Book Description
Racing the Antelope
"The human experience is populated by dreams and aspirations. For me, the animal totem of these dreams is the antelope, swift, strong, and elusive. we chase after 'antelope,' and sometimes we catch them. Often we don't. But why do we bother? I think it is because without dream 'antelopes' to chase we become what a lapdog is to a wolf. And we are inherently more like wolves than lapdogs, because the communal chase is part of our biological makeup."
In 1981, Bernd Heinrich, a lifelong runner, decided to test his limits at age forty-one and race in the North American 100-Kilometer Championship race in Chicago. To improve his own preparations as a runner, he wondered what he could learn from other animals--what makes us different and how we are the same--and what new perspective these lessons could shed on human evolution. A biologist and award-winning nature writer, he considered the flight endurance of insects and birds, the antelope's running prowess and limitations, the ultraendurance of the camel, and the remarkable sprinting and jumping skills of frogs. Exploring how biological adaptations have granted these creatures "superhuman" abilities, he looked at how human physiology can or cannot replicate these adaptations. Drawing on his observations and knowledge of animal physiology and behavior, Heinrich ran the race, and the results surprised everyone--himself most of all.
In Racing the Antelope, Heinrich applies his characteristic blend of scientific inquiry and philosophical musing to a deft exploration of the human desire--even need--to run. His rich prose reveals what endurance athletes can learn about the body and the spirit from other athletes in the animal kingdom. He then takes you into the heart of his own grueling 100-kilometer ultramarathon, where he puts into practice all that he has discovered about the physical, spiritual--and primal--drive to win.
At once lyrical and scientific, Racing the Antelope melds a unique blend of biology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy with Heinrich's passion for running to discover how and why we run.
Customer Reviews:
An Unique Perspective.......2004-03-30
This is a great little book. It's title doesn't fully convey the complete story which includes one man's quest for a life-time-in-the-making run.
While Bern Heinrich's description of his quest pertains to ultra-marathoning, I found the principles he brought out equally applicable to lesser efforts. His vignettes of the natural endurance abilities various animals and insects are useful to ponder as one tries to squeeze a little extra performance out of a marathon. I found his observations of mankind's natural abilities and their comparisons to wildlife very interesting. I also found his commentary of his thoughts and tactics in preparation for and during his actual 100k race identical to some that I've had during my own endurance runs.
All in all, a unique read for the experienced runner who doesn't need another "how to" book on running.
Distance Running.......2002-11-19
This was a thoughtful venture into the science of distance running. The authors presents us with this scientific material (the physiology of endurance running) in a digestable manner. His prose is excellent for a scientist.
I'd Rather Eat Worms than Deplete.......2001-12-02
Anyone (like myself) who likes to run longer distances (and likes ~bugs~ to boot) will just plain enjoy reading about Heinrich's passion for the simple, elegant and primordial sport of running. Heinrich has woven his autobiography with scientific inquiry...his vocation (biology) is what gives this book about his avocation (running) an interesting bent. Heinrich talks about antelope, birds, toads, dogs and cats etc. and investigates what those animals can teach us about running, and what humans do or do not have in common with these animals regarding stamina, endurance, and even focus. I think that this book gives the reader / runner something to think about and be inspired by in an abstract way rather than serving as a ~step-by-step process~ on how to be a better runner. This is not some boastful read for the old-fart jock club (which by age I would qualify for), but an inspirational life story ~and~ scientific investigation regarding the human spirit, our primal / animal need to run (well, some of us anyway) and the drive to pursue our dreams (that goes for all of us!).
Very entertaining book.......2001-10-18
I can't disagree with the other reviewers that say this book is original and intense. However, I'm struggling to find out how my running can benefit from Heinrich's advice. The problem I have with the book is that it's disorganized. It starts off comparing the physiology of animals and humans' running ability, and ends with Heinrich's triumph at the big ultramarathon. I'm not sure what message the author and publisher are trying to convey to me. I was totally enthralled though with the discussion of the physiology of animals. I guess I was hoping for more details on how a runner can best prepare for an ultramarathon.
Don't Forget We are All Animals!.......2001-09-22
Racing the Antelope is one of the finest books on running I have ever read. Heinrich draws us in with his anecdotes as an ultramarathoner and enriches us with his deatiled knowledge of biology and physiology. The technical aspects are informative yet not too heavy. Any experienced or even beginner runner can profit from his examples. Well done!!
Amazon.com
If you haven't seen the film version of Inherit the Wind, you might have read it in high school. And even people who have never heard of either the movie or the play probably know something about the events that inspired them: The 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," during which Darwin's theory of evolution was essentially put on trial before the nation. Inherit the Wind paints a romantic picture of John Scopes as a principled biology teacher driven to present scientific theory to his students, even in the teeth of a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of anything other than creationism. The truth, it turns out, was something quite different. In his fascinating history of the Scopes trial, Summer for the Gods, Edward J. Larson makes it abundantly clear that Truth and the Purity of Science had very little to do with the Scopes case. Tennessee had passed a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union responded by advertising statewide for a high-school teacher willing to defy the law. Communities all across Tennessee saw an opportunity to put themselves on the map by hosting such a controversial trial, but it was the town of Dayton that came up with a sacrificial victim: John Scopes, a man who knew little about evolution and wasn't even the class's regular teacher. Chosen by the city fathers, Scopes obligingly broke the law and was carted off to jail to await trial.
What happened next was a bizarre mix of theatrics and law, enacted by William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Though Darrow lost the trial, he made his point--and his career--by calling Bryan, a noted Bible expert, as a witness for the defense. Summer for the Gods is a remarkable retelling of the trial and the events leading up to it, proof positive that truth is stranger than science.
Book Description
Reissued with a new preface: the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that is "quite simply the best book ever written on the Scopes Trial and its place in American history and myth."
In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the 20th century's most contentious dramas: the Scopes trial that pit William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes into a famous debate over science, religion, and their place in public education.
That trial marked the start of a battle that continues to this day--in Dover, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Cobb County, Georgia, and many other cities and states throughout the country. Edward Larson's classic, Summer for the Gods, received the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1998 and is the single most authoritative account of a pivotal event whose combatants remain at odds in school districts and courtrooms. For this edition, Larson has added a new preface that assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.
Customer Reviews:
De-simplification.......2007-08-21
A Tennessee newspaper called the Scopes trial at the time a 'publicity stunt'. Meaning publicity for the city of Dayton.
America never ceases to surprise me. Until not so long ago I had never heard of the Scopes trial. I stumbled over it once in a while when reading about the disputes between Christian fundamentalists and 'science', specifically evolutionists. I imagined something like a fight of the titans, Evolution versus Creation.
Not so. Now I learn from Larson that everything was a little different. (This is by now also a cliche: things are not what they seem. Are they ever?)
Actually it had aspects of a farce.
The more interesting aspects are not the farcical ones though, but rather how this event was the focal point not so much of two strong opponents clashing, but of a much more diverse field of issues.
I had forgotten that evolution, by the mid 20s, was a different thing from what it seems now. First of all, the so-called Darwinian synthesis had not yet happened, which led to 'neo-Darwinism', basing Darwin's theory of natural selection on knowledge of genetics (of which Darwin himself had had no idea yet).
In the 20s, Darwinism was much more attached to the smelly and dead ideology of so-called Social Darwinism (for which Mr.Darwin should not be blamed), than it is nowadays. At that time, eugenics were still considered an honorable pursuit, it appears. That was the attempt to improve mankind's genetic substance by a kind of human breeding program. Going for Nietzsche's Uebermensch. Now we know how it ended with the Nazis' euthanasia programs. Even World War I, which had been over not so long past, had brought implications of 'Darwinism' in the ideology of Wilhelminian militarism. Overall a rather dubious surrounding and not as squeaky clean as pure science.
At the same time there was the aftermath of the social earthquakes that WWI had shaken loose: the Russian revolution, the spreading hysteria in America about the 'Red Scare', labor prosecution, leading to McCarthyism later on. And among the Christian denominations the fight between the modernists and the fundamentalists, whose primary opponent seems to have been their deviating fellow Christians more than the evolutionists, who became sort of a derived target.
The trial itself is a ridiculous affair about a substitute teacher who used a book which mentions evolution, which broke a newly introduced law against teaching evolution in Tennessee. What a joke. Particularly as the teacher volunteered to be the defendant in this mock trial.
The book also de-simplifies the aftermath by showing how the real events were mystified in later texts, and by showing how fundamentalism, rather than accepting defeat, just moved away from the general public into an own strong subculture.
The Facts, yes--but still more Drama than Debate.......2007-08-15
In order to be credible to all sides in a highly-partisan cultural war, professor of law and history Edward J. Larson in his book "Summer of the Gods: The Scopes Trial And America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion" had to present the facts and nothing but the facts ("so help him God" or not). This is the book's necessary strength and its unfortunate weakness. I would like to have heard more reflection.
Much light could come just from placing the historical scene in a larger context. For example, what connections can be made between the meaninglessness and despair of World War I, the recent Marxist-Leninist revolution, the red scare of the 20's, Darrow's agnosticism and membership in the Communist party, and the fears of an attack on traditional values and beliefs this all must have engendered?
The facts about this "great," or at least highly significant, all-American trial are so often the exactly opposite of the myths that survived so long! Perhaps we now need a anthropologist of culture and religion to analyze how we could go so long believing utter falsehoods, and all without force of propaganda or threat of gulag.
Surely on the deeper issues of the philosophical debate between science and religion as reflected in American culture, Mr. Larson, whose background is exactly in this type of historical study, could lend a hand. Certainly he has done us a great service by his meticulously objective work for this well-deserved Pulitzer Prize winning effort, but there is little philosophical thought to be found.
The Scopes courtroom led to more drama than debate, more chance than justice or toleration. Both sides claimed to win, but all sides actually lost. Both the real trial and the mythic one reflected in the movie "Inherit the Wind" (and other cultural renderings passed down as folklore)--both failed to even satisfactorily debate let alone struggle with the underlying conflicts or seek answers to America's larger quest for clarity of identity.
Neither built toward a consensus. Hence our ongoing crazy cultural wars with Ten Commandments tablets allowed here but not there, all supported by highly reasoned legal arguments on both sides that will all look more like myth and superstition to the next eon--hopefully. Our capitalistic Mark Twainish show trial was mercifully free of the menace of Stalin's show trials of the 30's. Nevertheless, by failing to address the challenges of this chapter in our over-politicized mythic struggle, we neither evolve nor practice true religion.
Nevertheless, as a starting touchstone "Summer of the God's" deserves a place on all our book shelves. It has inspired me to want to read a biography about William Jennings Bryan, and Darrow's autobiography as well.
Great coverage of the trial; of its aftermath, not so much..........2007-07-05
The author did a great job of demystifying the trial, a task long overdue. The question was whether a state or community could prohibit teaching any theory or doctrine in the public classroom, and jury had decided that it could. If young Scopes was teaching Marx's theory of class struggle in history class, I think the outcome would have been the same, though I doubt there would have been even a fictionalized account opening on Broadway, thirty years later.
Yet somehow, because the theory in question was Darwinism, and because the trial was held in the Bible Belt, it has been misrepresented from the get-go as another icon in the ever continuing "...debate over science and religion." Unfortunately, this is the subtitle of this work, and the reason at least one star was dropped from my rating.
The author continued to equate "anti-evolutionists" with "Fundamentalists" throughout his book, which extended into the last decades of the 20th Century, long after the equation was valid. By this time, several scientists, many without any strong religious beliefs, had poked serious holes in Evolutionary theory, developing a formalized concept called "Intelligent Design." Furthermore, several other scientists, though not willing to dispute macro-evolution overall, had serious reservations about supporting Darwin's Natural Selection mechanism for the development of new species. Thus, Punctuated Equilibrium appeared on the scene, championed by the late Harvard paleontologist, Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, which weakened the theory most often taught in school, and understood by the public, even more.
Unfortunately, the author decided not to include these scientific controversies, perhaps not wanting to "dirty up the water."
But in doing so, he chose to represent the ongoing reluctance of some state and local school boards, some far from the Bible Belt, to teach Darwinism as anything more than a theory, as purely a product of "Fundamentalism."
He probably should have stopped his narrative about a chapter earlier...
The Echoes of the Past .......2007-05-28
Summer for the Gods
The echoes of the past continue to reverberate. Although it's been eighty years since the Scopes Trial, the debate over the teaching of the origins of life goes on.
The monumental intellectual battle pitted Williams Jennings Bryan against Clarence Darrow following the indictment and arrest of a Dayton, Tennessee public school teacher for violating a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution.
The controversy focused attention...not much of it favorable... on the South, which was still smarting from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
In "Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's continuing Debate over Science " Edward J. Larson takes the reader through the background of the Scopes matter; the involvement of the ACLU, which was seeking a test case at the time; and the role of the Prosecution and Defense. The media (or, the Press at the time) had an important role as well -- the Baltimore Sun's acerbic H.L. Mencken covered the story, and on one day of the trial journalists filed 200,000 words by telegraph. Larson's Pulitzer-prize winning account is an enjoyable and entertaining read. His "afterword," which compares the Scopes matter to the current debate between Science and "Intelligent Design", is especially useful. The recent attempts to restrict academic freedom in Kansas and other jurisdictions illustrate the currency of the debate.
A recent Google search revealed 29,600,000 hits for "intelligent design." There are societies, institutions, and now even a Museum designed to promote Creationism. (Interestingly, William Jennings Bryan founded his own college, Bryan College, to promote his views, much as the late Rev Jerry Fallwell.)
Larson makes ample use of the papers of Bryan, Darrow and other principals in the trial and contemporary news accounts. His book is an entertaining, enlightening, and gracefully-written addition to the literature on the subject.
As another reviewer has noted, the legal background of the story is of particular interest... particularly given than in 1925, many general principles which we take for granted today (for example, the application of the Establishment of Religion Clause to State as well as Federal law ) didn't exist at the time.
Pulitzer-prize winning book.......2007-04-30
It's easy to see why Edward Larson won a Pulitzer prize for this book. It's a fascinating, well-written account of the Scopes trial that avoids the hyper-partisanship that usually surrounds the issue.
Larson doesn't come across as an obnoxious evolutionist or an obnoxious creationist. Instead he comes across as a truly professional historian who gives a thorough and fair account of this famous trial.
Amazon.com
Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial, it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In The Mating Mind, he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music, and literature.
Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller compares it to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project, which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence that Miller brings to bear on it. Steeped in popular culture, the book mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness indicators, and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins. Indeed, Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).
That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove comforting, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analyzing humor. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, The Mating Mind is formidable, its agent-provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
At once a pioneering study of evolution and an accessible and lively reading experience,
The Mating Mind marks the arrival of a prescient and provocative new science writer. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincing–and radical–explanation for how and why the human mind evolved.
Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking,
The Mating Mind is a landmark in our understanding of our own species.
Customer Reviews:
My mind will never see itself in the same way again!.......2007-06-22
This book was a very enjoyable read, both for the ideas it proposed and for the personality of the author.
What impressed me the most about the author was his willingness to explore aspects of reality that, by their basic nature, cannot be seen or probed with scientific instruments. What do I mean? Well, I am strongly of the persuasion that consideration of the internal, subjective experiences of living organisms is completely inseparable from any scientific understanding of life, and that this persuasion is sorely lacking from the worldview of most scientists. This matters less, if at all, for fields such as particle physics, but for a field such as evolutionary psychology it is crucial.
To ignore the inner experiences of our ancestors... their desires, their passions, their religious beliefs, their inexplicable aesthetic tastes... and focus merely on the biological, or the cartesian processes of natural selection, or tribal cohesion or whatever, is to utterly cripple the entire endeavor. Natural selection, while very powerful, is also very limited - this seems incredibly obvious to me, but for some reason is not incredibly obvious to most evolutionary psychologists.
Geoffrey Miller, in fortunate contrast to the majority of his colleagues, actually has a soul. As long as one does not deviate from a scientific approach to knowledge, there is (I contend) simply no reason to put any absolute limit whatsoever on the depths to which one attempts to unravel the interior dimensions of the human experience. In this regard Mr. Miller goes laudably deeper than most scientists, and as a result his book contains many very original ideas that are very, very satisfying to witness integrated with evolutionary psychology. I find it difficult to believe that any human being with a calm approach to knowledge and an interest in the origins and nature of our species could fail to find this book fascinating.
The only possible shortfall of the book is it's prose. This is something for which I have no actual complaint - Mr. Miller's writing is quite clear, indisputably lucid, and at times very imaginative - it's just that I have a personal appetite for metaphors, figurative speech, and philosophical tangents that exceed normal levels. Mr. Miller, being a professional scientist rather than a professional author, didn't leave me fully satisfied on this level. To his credit, however, the book contains a parody of Carl Sagan that had me almost rolling on the floor with laughter!
In short, while this book didn't quite send my divine, intangible essence up rocketing through the azure firmament in an ecstatic convergence of infinite cosmic forces regurgitated by the Great Wug, an experience that in it's supreme form is comparable to a burrito achieving self-transcendance in a microwave, it was nonetheless very, very good. I recommend it to all incurably curious people who are also occasionally fascinated by the many ways the universe works.
Every marriage counselor should have a copy.......2007-03-12
Although this book doesn't directly deal with marital problems per se, reading it helps to gain understanding of both what is, and what is NOT particularly "natural" in man-woman relations (mating behavior).
As other reviewers have indicated, the main thrust of the book is to chronicle the thinking of evolutionary scientists as to the nature of non-directly survival oriented selection, i.e. selection outside the realm of the conventional "natural selection" of traits needed to survive to reproductive age. For this purpose, traits that may indicate overall offspring strength and health tend to be sexually selected for, based on the traits' difficulty to fake and conspicuous costliness. For example if a peacock can be so strong as to survive with such a heavy colorful predator attracting tail, well, he surely must be a strong peacock and, as such, quite sexy. The analog to the peacock tail for humans is, in general, extensive human intelligence.
But beyond detailing the various theses of sexual selection and its related evolutionary processes, the book also covers mating behavior of pre-civilization (Pleistocene) humans. Furthermore it notes that the amount of time civilization has existed, measured in reproductive generations, is so small that hardly an iota of genetic difference exists between civilized humans and pre-Neolithic hunter gatherers. (Some of the latter are still in existence today.) As such there can be no doubt that our basic genetic human nature is that of the hunter gatherer. Moreover, there is a material consistency in sexual/mating behavior of hunter gatherers, behavior that could be described as "natural". It's not prostitution, at least to the extent that hunter gatherers don't have/use money. It's not polygamy, this appearing as a kind of corollary to skewed distributions of power and wealth that occur in civilization. And finally it's not ultra long-term monogamy (marriage), also an outcome of civilization invented to deal with legal and economic matters concerning property, inheritance, education in child rearing, etc. Nope. The "natural", hunter gatherer way is described in the book a something akin to "serial monogamy", which across diverse hunter gatherer societies yields quite consistent observation of fairly strong temporary monogamous bonds, at least through to pregnancy. Such bonds may even extend through child birth and early baby care, but little continues after that. Half siblings and multiple lifetime lovers are more the rules than the exceptions.
With this sort of knowledge and understanding of both the evolutionary purpose and the more natural norms of human mating behavior, it seems possible that marriage counselors and their clients might be better prepared to come up with more apt solutions to marital difficulties. And I also suspect there's an important policy implication from this book for social and legal planners: invent renewable, one to five year term marriages.
Some Credibility Checks On An Active Imagination.......2006-12-18
This young, obviously learned author has really "pushed the envelope" with his radically reductive explanations of human nature, and human behavior. Perhaps the time is ripe for an astute application of Sir Karl Popper's "falsifiability criterion," in order to restore some balance to an otherwise very creative account; for while creativity and imagination are essential to the advancement of science (or any other human endeavor), so is rigor. On the humorous side, I don't recommend that "dashing young suitors" share the underlying philosophy of human beings contained in this book with their favorite girlfriend--even if they privately believe it. Otherwise, they may find themselves "standing in the rain" and, literally, out of the gene pool. The "Queen of Hearts" can surely see and will usually prefer a heart in her "Gentleman." And it's still true that the heart knows things that reason (or scientistic materialism) knows nothing about (Blaise Pascal).
Not Bad.......2006-06-13
Although I'm not too fond of evolutionary psychology (EP), simply because at the moment we can easily explain any psychological characteristic either socially, naturally, or both (each with convincing, but not concrete support), Miller's analysis of sexual selection is at times very intriguing. In particular, his explanation of sexual selections contribution to male/female ornamentation is very compelling.
However, other than that I found his arguments for the creativity and social characteristics of human culture overlook the power of socialization by maintaining that ALL our non-sexual behaviors are in fact side-effects of our ancestors' sexual behavior. Although very convincing while reading it, you should be aware that EP only attributes all behavior as being dictated by genetics because we have no other advanced culture to compare it to. Throughout the book, Miller avoids holes in his theory by dismissing those whose behaviors don't comply with it as anomalies (for example, people who are celibate). However, these are exactly what he needs to address, not because they're a rarity, but because they display the power of the opposing force he's neglecting: Nurture.
With all that being said, I still would have given it four stars for Miller's excellent account of the possibilities of sexual selection. He emphasized it more as a significant evolutionary force than any other book I've come across. However, he often had a tendency to ramble, and exhaust his analogies. When it finished, I'd been saying "enough" for about 150 pages.
It's all about understanding.......2006-06-05
Only a true scientist could have written a book like this one. Someone who is knowledgeable enough to know the facts, brilliant enough to come up with a sound theory and courageous enough to stand up for it, even though it follows the lines not very popular for the last century.
As it turns out to be, Darwin's theory had two halves to it, the one about natural selection and the one about sexual selection. To be evolutionary successful, to pass its genes further in time, not only the creature has to survive (this is where natural selection plays), but also to participate in sex, to give birth to a child, and this is the realm of sexual selection. But for various (mostly unscientifical) reasons, the bigger and more important sexual selection half has been neglected by other scientists of the time.
As soon as you are attractive to the other sex - you are fit for evolutionary success, and you develop traits necessary for that fitness demonstration. Simple and clear. The book applies those evolutionary ideas to everything human. Applying the theory to every imaginable aspect of human nature, the author nevertheless notes:
"My sexual choice theory sometimes sounds as if it could explain anything, and hence explains nothing. [...] Indeed, one goal of this book is to inspire other scientists to join me in testing these ideas."
The first half of the book takes formal approach to the principles behind the theory and refers to and grounds on works on many other respectable scientists.
Then the author shows the power and applicability of the theory in many aspects, detailed discussion of each could take a book in itself. The second half of the book consists of small chapters, each touching different aspect of human nature and behaviour. "Life Stories", "Creativity And Intelligence", "Apathy as the Evolutionary Norm", and so on. Enough ideas for a lifetime.
I'm neither a psychologist, nor a biologist, but as a mathematician I greatly appreciate the logic in scientific arguments, even though I might not be in position of verifying all the citations. And the author's logic in this book is impeccable. Of course, as everything else, it has its weak spots and assumptions impossible to ever verify, but whenever this happens, the author points right to it instead of hiding behind words like "it's obvious" or "every highly moral human would understand".
To me, Mr. Miller's theory was a real mind blower. It simply explains a lot of things I see around. Things that I have long thought about, things that bugged me, his theory clearly explains. And it does so without straining - that's what makes me believe it's true - it has no shortcuts, everything is very simple and clear and coherent with the observable facts.
If you want to read this book you have to let go of all the prejudices you might have. Accept that the "civilization" we normally associate with "humanity", is no more than a tiny glitch on an endless timescale of evolution. Remember the diversity even of existing peoples and don't just think that those who don't believe in Christ are weirdos. Admit that the rules by which people evolve did not change, and I don't mean "since invention of {your favourite feature you associate with civilization success}" but for million years. Forget your complexes and fobias. Forget everything TV and movies have inserted into you. The hardest things to admit are your own biases and beliefs. Here is one other quote which displays the virtue of this work:
"Moral philosophers consider only a tiny fraction of human virtues and moral judgements worthy of analysis. But scientists must consider them all."
To conclude, note that this is a book about understanding. It's not about defying morality or norms of society, it's about knowing how it works. To quote:
"the sexual choice theory is ambitious in trying to offer some new theoretical foundations for understanding human culture."
Amazing book, amazing work of science, amazingly thought out and written, with clear language and unique sense of humour.
Amazon.com
It's common to blame "human nature" for some of the unpleasant facts of life--road rage, say, or murder, or war. The problem with this convenient out, argues the distinguished scientist Paul Ehrlich, is that there really is no single human nature. Humans, it's true, share a common genetic code with remarkably few large-scale differences (if all but native Africans disappeared from the planet, he notes, "humanity would still retain somewhat more than 90 percent of its genetic variability"); and evolution has endowed us with capabilities shared by no other species. But for all that, he adds, our separation into haves and have-nots, weak and strong, and other such categories is more often than not a product of cultural evolution, a process far more complex than the mere mutation and adaptation of a few genes. And, in any event, those genes "do not shout commands to us about our behavior," Ehrlich says. "At the very most, they whisper suggestions."
In this wide-ranging survey of what it is that has made and that continues to make us human, Ehrlich touches on a number of themes--among them, his recurrent observation that science has taught us little about how genes influence human behavior. (Instead, he notes wryly, "science tells us that we are creatures of accident clinging to a ball of mud hurtling aimlessly through space. This is not a notion to warm hearts or rouse multitudes.") He urges that scientists take a larger, interdisciplinary view that looks beyond mere genetics to the larger forces that shape our lives, a view for which Human Natures makes a handy, and highly accessible, primer. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
Why do we behave the way we do? Biologist Paul Ehrlich suggests that although people share a common genetic code, these genes "do not shout commands at us . . . at the very most, they whisper suggestions." He argues that human nature is not so much the result of genetic coding; rather, it is heavily influenced by cultural conditioning and environmental factors. With personal anecdotes, a well-written narrative, and clear examples, Human Natures is a major work of synthesis and scholarship as well as a valuable primer on genetics and evolution that makes complex scientific concepts accessible to lay readers.
"I doubt whether anyone will write as good a book of this sort on [human evolution] for another two or three decades." (Science)
"Ehrlich's book is so well researched and so elegantly presented that it stands as one of the best introductions to human evolution in recent memory." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)
Customer Reviews:
Ehrlich as Sisyphus.......2005-11-25
Ehrlich's central thesis - that there is not just one human nature but many seems eminently reasonable on the surface. But Ehrlich sidesteps the most convincing evidence! His "culture theory" rebuttal of the straw man of "genetic determinism" singularly fails to review the many twin and adoption studies showing that people inherit their behavior as well as their appearance.
Ehrlich becomes especially annoying when he repeats the mantra that human races do not exist and brands the genetic argument over race and sex differences "racist" and "sexist." Consider the following sets of data. If race was an invalid concept and genes had little or no predictive power, the findings I summarize would not be so consistently found.
For example, although IQ tests were invented by Whites and standardized on mainly White populations, dozens of studies now show that East Asians, whether tested in North America or in Pacific Rim countries, typically average higher than Whites, scoring in the range of 101 to 111. Caucasoid populations in North America and in Europe typically average an IQ of 100. African populations living south of the Sahara, in North America, and in the Caribbean have mean IQs of from 70 to 90.
Ehrlich also fails to mention that IQ scores are related to brain size and that the races differ in brain size. Over a dozen magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have found a r = 0.40 relation between brain size and IQ. Racial differences in brain size have been established using four quite different procedures: MRI, autopsies, endocranial volume, and external head measures. The brains of East Asians (Koreans, Chinese, Japanese) and their descendants consistently average a larger volume (about 17 cm3) than those of Europeans and their descendants, and 97 cm3 larger than those of Africans and their descendants.
Changes in brain size have cascading effects on other traits, including athletic ability. Blacks have narrower hips than Whites or East Asians which gives them a more efficient stride and enables them to run and jump better. The reason why Blacks have narrower hips, however, is because they give birth to smaller brained babies. During evolution, increasing cranial size meant women had to have a wider pelvis.
Why did Ehrlich neglect to mention all these data if he's interested in the truth about human natures (in the plural)? Wouldn't we expect the evolutionary process to have different effects in different environments? In the wake of the success of The Bell Curve and other recent books about race by Arthur Jensen, Michael Levin, and me (Race, Evolution, and Behavior) that provide race-realist answers to the question of differential group achievement, there has been an intense effort to get the 'race genie' back in the bottle. Its sad when a scientist with so many accomplishments and so Herculean a reputation as Ehrlich takes it upon himself to assume so Sisyphean a task.
Once more into the breach . . ........2004-09-27
Paul Ehrlich enters the lists of "nature vs nurture" by fulminating against the straw-man of "genetic determinism". One would have thought this joust would have been called for "time" by now. In his attempt to triumph over this rather ephemeral opponent, Ehrlich has performed a prodigious task. This well-written and comprehensive view of human evolution is a valuable resource. A massive footnotes and references collection grants this book value far above the narrative itself. Ehrlich, a practiced writer and researcher, brings many years of work and observations of the human condition to this massive overview. He strives to explain who we are and how we arrived at our current stature. He further warns that our lack of understanding of our backgrounds may threaten our future.
"Human nature" is often cited as a foundation for many behavioural traits. The fallacy of that moral expression is revealed in the variety of our habits. Ehrlich recognises that variation in his title and goes on to explain it in this book. While the genetic foundation of our behaviour is being solidly established by much field research, he ultimately concludes much of that basis is overriden by our cultural influences. Much of our confusion about "nature versus nurture", he contends, lies in the rapid pace of humanity. Compared to most other species, our mental development raced past the other animals - with language as the accelerator pedal. Since the genetic base for most traits is so slow and nearly muted, our development agriculture, religion and urban society virtually overwhelmed our "animal instincts". The prime example, of course, is the massive impact we have on our environment.
Ehrlich's key in assessing genetic versus cultural input lies [logically!] in the structure of the brain. When he wrote this book, the human genome was thought to be comprised of 100 000 genes. With that figure halved, he concludes the genome hasn't the power to command the billions of neurons with their trillions of connections that comprise the human brain. This "gene" shortage, he avers, suggests the genome hasn't the capacity to drive human behaviour to any significant degree. This rather simplisitic enumeration ignores the fact that the entire genome, whatever the number of genes, must be highly interactive in many areas of the body - the brain is simply another part of the mechanism. He is apparently unaware of the brain research showing how similar interactions have been mapped within the brain. Genes merely kickstart the process, they don't need to "control" our behaviour.
Ehrlich takes the usual swipes at Richard Dawkins as he builds his narrative. Like so many others, Ehrlich's reading of "The Selfish Gene" appears to have ceased at the title. To him, the "Great Leap Forward" of some fifty thousand years ago emancipated us from the shackles of our genetic heritage. With the development of language [which wouldn't have happened without a biologically endowed "voice box"], human cognition, hence behaviour, launched on a new course. Ehrlich asserts we've never looked back, but also warns our capabilities should be adapted to now look forward. Our abilities threaten the biosphere with an intensity and scope no other species possessed.
In his conclusion, the author nearly reverses all his prior narrative. He urges humanity to develop a better understanding of its place within nature. That, of course, means a full programme of understanding animal behaviour and the mechanisms animals and plants use to stay alive and reproduce. Our evolution, particularly the cultural input, has led us to believe we are distinct from Nature. Ehrlich recognises the dangers of such an attitude and urges us to overcome it. Although an excellent synthesis and supremely comprehensive, it's unfortunate that Ehrlich's prejudices blinded him to create a problem that doesn't exist. Nobody argues for "biological determinism" in an absolute sense - certainly not Dawkins. Where Ehrlich is correct is that we must increase our knowledge of how nature works and undertake the tasks needed to stop and reverse the spoilage under way.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
A weak intro and polemic.......2002-10-21
Paul Erlich is usually introduced as the author of "The Population Bomb", so it's not unreasonable to look back for a moment at that book- and Erlich's intellectual history- in considering this new book. Back in the 1960s Erlich was a mainstay of the popular media- sort of a Carl Sagan of population- and a regular guest on the Tonight Show, where he spelled out his apocalyptic vision.
"The Population Bomb" was a polemic that dictated a series of prescriptions for society, without which we were racing headlong to all sorts of disasters, notable shrtages of all strategic resources, massive starvation involving millions of people, food riots that destroyed governments and the downfall of western society as we knew it. This was prophisized to happen in the 1970s, and as most of us recall, none of it happened. He went on to predict that *billions* would die of starvation in the 1980s. Erlich also made a famous bet with economist Julian Simon,in which Simon challanged Erlich to pick 5 commodities that he felt would go up in price because of shortages. Erlich took the bet, and all five fell drastically in price.
In fact, nothing that Erlich prophasized ever happened. Erlich's predictions had little to do with science and much do do with ad-hoc justifications for his political prescriptions. Now Erlich has jumped onto the nature/nurture bandwagon, which has generated a lot of renewed interest in recent years owing to some major breakthroughs in the understanding of, and potential control over, the genetic makeup of humans. And once again, Erlich sees a lot of reasons we should follow his particular social agenda.
There's nothing particularly new or original in the discussion of nature and nurture in this book, which isn't surprising as Erlich has never done any research in this area. Most of the book is a fairly elementary rehash of the last twenty years of genetic research. Unfortunately it's not a terribly good one. His understanding of issues like human language is elementary at best. Even as science continues to discover just how much of our nature and our biology is, in fact, genetically determined, Erlich's position is that the contribution of genes to behavior is all but trivial, and that leads into the real intent of this book, which is to say his prescription for how society should be run. And not surprisingly, it's the same prescription he was making in the 1960s.
Erlich's problem is that he wants to be a social philosopher. He longs to dictate his notion of an ideal society- but he doesn't have any good social arguments. Instead he gives us specious arguments rooted in questionable scientific interpretations. The result is a poor introduction to either the nature-nurture debate or social philosophy.
Excellent reading for both the scientist and lay person.......2002-06-15
Ehrlich has added to a number of good inter-disciplinary books that have been published in the last few years that all bring together the social and hard sciences. This is a well written and brilliantly engaging work. Few readers will fail to come away after reading this without some sort of intellectual reward.
Culture as a model of human evolution is emphasised, not to overtake genetics, but to add another dimension. The implications of this effect many fields, including biology, genetics, psychology, history and anthropology. Ehrlichs intelligent and clear writing, persuasive analysis and excellent footnotes make reading "Human Natures" a worthwhile effort. A joy to read.
A "must read".......2001-05-24
"Human Natures" is far and away the clearest, most comprehensive, and most compelling synthesis of what is known about the co-evolution of humans, their cultures, and the rest of nature currently available. The title subtly reflects the important distinction between human "nature" and human "natures" - the plural implying that our species has many and varied natures - not a single unitary nature. This pluralism is in stark contrast to the stilted and unrealistic assumptions about a singular human nature embodied in both the reductionist biological model and the conventional economic model. The biological reductionist idea that all human behavior can be reduced to a genetic basis is clearly insufficient in light of the massive importance of cultural evolution in shaping human behavior. Likewise, the all-knowing, perfectly rational economic utility or profit maximizer of the conventional economic model may be convenient for mathematical tractability, but it is so far from the reality of human natures that it is laughable. The only mystery is why, given what we know about human natures, more economists are not laughing. The case of Phineas Gage, described by Ehrlich in the book, serves to illustrate the size of the chasm between the conventional economic model and reality. Gage was a railroad worker who had a large portion of his frontal lobe removed when a 1.25 inch-thick tamping rod shot through his head in a freak railroad accident in 1848. Amazingly, Gage survived and was not even knocked unconscious by the accident. But he was a changed man. He had lost the part of the brain that we now know is dedicated to emotional responses. A surprising result was that while he could think, talk, and calculate perfectly well - he was completely "rational" - he simply could not make a decision. It turns out that rationality without emotions leads to swamping with details and the inability to make any decisions at all, even ones so trivial as what to eat for dinner. That emotions are necessary for decision making is an interesting part of real human natures, but is in direct contradiction to the conventional economic assumptions about decision-making, which considers emotions to be a hinderence to "rational" decision-making. But as Ehrlich points out: "Human emotional capacities evolved along with our cognitive capacities. Without the ability to respond to stimuli with appropriate emotions, critical decision making becomes impossible" (pp. 121-122). The challenge is to build economic models that incorporate the realities of human natures, rather than to assume them away. The weakest aspect of the book is the imbalance between its treatment of genetic and cultural evolution. While Ehrlich takes pains to acknowledge the large and growing importance of cultural evolution in shaping human natures, he gives very little space in the book to the details of how cultural evolution works and does not attempt to synthesize the research in this area in anything like the completeness with which he treats human genetic evolution. For example, he notes that cultural evolution has several unique characteristics relative to genetic evolution. Most importantly, learned behavior can be passed on through the culture to genetically unrelated individuals and changes in culture can occur with light speed relative to genetic evolution. But how does this work and what does this mean for human natures and for the future of our society? This and several other key questions about the details of the relationship between genetic and cultural evolution are hinted at in passing, but left largely unaddressed in the current volume. For example, conventional biological evolution theory is largely circular and descriptive, not predictive. It is one thing to describe how alligators evolved, but quite another to be able to predict the emergence of alligators. To do this one would need to know the underlying criteria for success in evolution that can be specified before the fact. From a predictive point of view, it doesn't help much to say that those individuals that reproduce best will survive, unless one can say why particular individuals will be able to reproduce better than others in particular situations. Most human evolutionary ecologists work on time scales that make this question moot, but it is essential for understanding cultural evolution, the results of which are observable in units of years rather than thousands of years. To use the evolutionary paradigm in predictive modeling, we require a quantitative measure of fitness (or more generally performance) that can be specified before the fact, in order to drive the selection process. Another important question has to do with the "reflexive" nature of cultural evolution - because we are capable of at least some degree of conceptualization and foresight, we can exert at least partial control over our own selection environment. The process then becomes one of conscious design and tinkering with the cultural evolutionary process rather than passive response to externally determined criteria. How does this process work and what are it's limits? Devising policy instruments and identifying incentives that can translate foresight into effective modifications of the short-run cultural evolutionary dynamics is the key research challenge. In cultural evolution, we have the unique potential to first envision our goals and then modify the selection criteria in order to achieve them. Ehrlich's book provides a solid basis for addressing these and countless other questions that are critical to understanding our human natures and how we can actively participate in changing them. Adequately understanding and controlling our complex human natures is essential to the continued survival of our so far exceptionally successful species.
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