Why We Believe

Why We Believe PDF Author: Agustin Fuentes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030024925X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
A wide-ranging argument by a renowned anthropologist that the capacity to believe is what makes us human Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope? Philosophers, theologians, social scientists, and historians have offered explanations for centuries, but their accounts often ignore or even avoid human evolution. Evolutionary scientists answer with proposals for why ritual, religion, and faith make sense as adaptations to past challenges or as by-products of our hyper-complex cognitive capacities. But what if the focus on religion is too narrow? Renowned anthropologist Agustín Fuentes argues that the capacity to be religious is actually a small part of a larger and deeper human capacity to believe. Why believe in religion, economies, love? A fascinating intervention into some of the most common misconceptions about human nature, this book employs evolutionary, neurobiological, and anthropological evidence to argue that belief—the ability to commit passionately and wholeheartedly to an idea—is central to the human way of being in the world.

Why We Believe

Why We Believe PDF Author: Agustin Fuentes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030024925X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
A wide-ranging argument by a renowned anthropologist that the capacity to believe is what makes us human Why are so many humans religious? Why do we daydream, imagine, and hope? Philosophers, theologians, social scientists, and historians have offered explanations for centuries, but their accounts often ignore or even avoid human evolution. Evolutionary scientists answer with proposals for why ritual, religion, and faith make sense as adaptations to past challenges or as by-products of our hyper-complex cognitive capacities. But what if the focus on religion is too narrow? Renowned anthropologist Agustín Fuentes argues that the capacity to be religious is actually a small part of a larger and deeper human capacity to believe. Why believe in religion, economies, love? A fascinating intervention into some of the most common misconceptions about human nature, this book employs evolutionary, neurobiological, and anthropological evidence to argue that belief—the ability to commit passionately and wholeheartedly to an idea—is central to the human way of being in the world.

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You PDF Author: Agustín Fuentes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285999
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
There are three major myths of human nature: humans are divided into biological races; humans are naturally aggressive; and men and women are truly different in behavior, desires, and wiring. In an engaging and wide-ranging narrative, Agustín Fuentes counters these pervasive and pernicious myths about human behavior. Tackling misconceptions about what race, aggression, and sex really mean for humans, Fuentes incorporates an accessible understanding of culture, genetics, and evolution, requiring us to dispose of notions of “nature or nurture.” Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields—including anthropology, biology, and psychology—Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy and differences between the sexes. A final chapter plus an appendix provide a set of take-home points on how readers can myth-bust on their own. Accessible, compelling, and original, this book is a rich and nuanced account of how nature, culture, experience, and choice interact to influence human behavior.

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, Second Edition

Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You, Second Edition PDF Author: Agustín Fuentes
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520379608
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
A compelling takedown of prevailing myths about human behavior, updated and expanded to meet the current moment. There are three major myths of human nature: humans are divided into biological races; humans are naturally aggressive; and men and women are wholly different in behavior, desires, and wiring. Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You counters these pervasive and pernicious myths about human behavior. Agustín Fuentes tackles misconceptions about what race, aggression, and sex really mean for humans, and incorporates an accessible understanding of culture, genetics, and evolution that requires us to dispose of notions of "nature or nurture." Presenting scientific evidence from diverse fields, including anthropology, biology, and psychology, Fuentes devises a myth-busting toolkit to dismantle persistent fallacies about the validity of biological races, the innateness of aggression and violence, and the nature of monogamy, sex, and gender. This revised and expanded edition provides up-to-date references, data, and analyses, and addresses new topics, including the popularity of home DNA testing kits and the lies behind ‘"incel" culture; the resurgence of racist, nativist thinking and the internet's influence in promoting bad science; and a broader understanding of the diversity of sex and gender.

The Creative Spark

The Creative Spark PDF Author: Agustín Fuentes
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101983957
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
A bold new synthesis of paleontology, archaeology, genetics, and anthropology that overturns misconceptions about race, war and peace, and human nature itself, answering an age-old question: What made humans so exceptional among all the species on Earth? Creativity. It is the secret of what makes humans special, hiding in plain sight. Agustín Fuentes argues that your child's finger painting comes essentially from the same place as creativity in hunting and gathering millions of years ago, and throughout history in making war and peace, in intimate relationships, in shaping the planet, in our communities, and in all of art, religion, and even science. It requires imagination and collaboration. Every poet has her muse; every engineer, an architect; every politician, a constituency. The manner of the collaborations varies widely, but successful collaboration is inseparable from imagination, and it brought us everything from knives and hot meals to iPhones and interstellar spacecraft. Weaving fascinating stories of our ancient ancestors' creativity, Fuentes finds the patterns that match modern behavior in humans and animals. This key quality has propelled the evolutionary development of our bodies, minds, and cultures, both for good and for bad. It's not the drive to reproduce; nor competition for mates, or resources, or power; nor our propensity for caring for one another that have separated us out from all other creatures. As Fuentes concludes, to make something lasting and useful today you need to understand the nature of your collaboration with others, what imagination can and can't accomplish, and, finally, just how completely our creativity is responsible for the world we live in. Agustín Fuentes's resounding multimillion-year perspective will inspire readers—and spark all kinds of creativity.

Summary of Agustin Fuentes's Why We Believe

Summary of Agustin Fuentes's Why We Believe PDF Author: Everest Media,
Publisher: Everest Media LLC
ISBN: 1669395510
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 DNA is the secret of who we are, and it is deeply embedded in all living things. It is a record of the histories of fusions and fissions that have characterized life from its first humble appearances four billion years ago. #2 The first part of the answer to who we are is that we are squarely in the midst of the order of mammals known as primates. We share a lot of DNA with other primates, and this has led many to believe that humans are just another species of primate. #3 Primate sociality is particularly complex and different from other forms of gregariousness. The human capacity to believe is rooted in the deep roots of primate sociality. #4 The human capacity for cooperation, collaboration, and deep social reliance on and commitment to others is rooted in our histories as primates. We have a capacity for complex social lives, heightened social cognition, and behavioral flexibility.

Primates Face to Face

Primates Face to Face PDF Author: Agustín Fuentes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139441477
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
As our closest evolutionary relatives, nonhuman primates are integral elements in our mythologies, diets and scientific paradigms, yet most species now face an uncertain future through exploitation for the pet and bushmeat trades as well as progressive habitat loss. New information about disease transmission, dietary and economic linkage, and the continuing international focus on conservation and primate research have created a surge of interest in primates, and focus on the diverse interaction of human and nonhuman primates has become an important component in primatological and ethnographic studies. By examining the diverse and fascinating range of relationships between humans and other primates, and how this plays a critical role in conservation practice and programs, Primates Face to Face disseminates the information gained from the anthropological study of nonhuman primates to the wider academic and non-academic world.

Evolution of Human Behavior

Evolution of Human Behavior PDF Author: Agustin Fuentes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195333589
Category : Behavior evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Author Agustin Fuentes incorporates recent innovations in evolutionary theory with emerging perspectives from genomic approaches, the current fossil record, and ethnographic studies. He examines basic assumptions about why humans behave as they do, the facts of human evolution, patterns of evolutionary change in a global environmental-temporal context, and the interconnected roles of cooperation and conflict in human history. The net result is a text that moves toward a more holistic understanding of the patterns of human evolution and a more integrated perspective on the evolution of human behavior."--BOOK JACKET.

Health, Risk, and Adversity

Health, Risk, and Adversity PDF Author: Catherine Panter-Brick
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845454555
Category : Health risk assessment
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Research on health involves evaluating the disparities that are systematically associated with the experience of risk, including genetic and physiological variation, environmental exposure to poor nutrition and disease, and social marginalization. This volume provides a unique perspective - a comparative approach to the analysis of health disparities and human adaptability - and specifically focuses on the pathways that lead to unequal health outcomes. From an explicitly anthropological perspective situated in the practice and theory of biosocial studies, this book combines theoretical rigor with more applied and practice-oriented approaches and critically examines infectious and chronic diseases, reproduction, and nutrition.

Centralizing Fieldwork

Centralizing Fieldwork PDF Author: Jeremy MacClancy
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845458516
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Fieldwork is a central method of research throughout anthropology, a much-valued, much-vaunted mode of generating information. But its nature and process have been seriously understudied in biological anthropology and primatology. This book is the first ever comparative investigation, across primatology, biological anthropology, and social anthropology, to look critically at this key research practice. It is also an innovative way to further the comparative project within a broadly conceived anthropology, because it does not focus on common theory but on a common method. The questions asked by contributors are: what in the pursuit of fieldwork is common to all three disciplines, what is unique to each, how much is contingent, how much necessary? Can we generate well-grounded cross-disciplinary generalizations about this mutual research method, and are there are any telling differences? Co-edited by a social anthropologist and a primatologist, the book includes a list of distinguished and well-established contributors from primatology and biological anthropology.

Primates in Perspective

Primates in Perspective PDF Author: Christina J. Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 884

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Book Description
This volume contains forty-seven original essays by seventy leading researchers, offering an overview of all major areas of primatology. Arranged in six sections, the text begins with an introduction to primatology and a review of the natural history of the major taxonomic groups within the order Primates. It goes on to cover methodologies and research design for both field and captive settings; primate reproduction; primate ecology and conservation and their roles in the daily lives of primates; and such aspects of social behavior and intelligence as communication, learning, and cognition. The volume ends with a concluding chapter by the editors that discuss the future of primatological research.