Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.
In the Light of Evolution
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
Book Description
The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.
Becoming Human
Author: Michael Tomasello
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674980859
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
Winner of the William James Book Award Winner of the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award “A landmark in our understanding of human development.” —Paul Harris, author of Trusting What You’re Told “Magisterial...Makes an impressive argument that most distinctly human traits are established early in childhood and that the general chronology in which these traits appear can...be identified.” —Wall Street Journal Virtually all theories of how humans have become such a distinctive species focus on evolution. Becoming Human looks instead to development and reveals how those things that make us unique are constructed during the first seven years of a child’s life. In this groundbreaking work, Michael Tomasello draws from three decades of experimental research with chimpanzees, bonobos, and children to propose a new framework for psychological growth between birth and seven years of age. He identifies eight pathways that differentiate humans from their primate relatives: social cognition, communication, cultural learning, cooperative thinking, collaboration, prosociality, social norms, and moral identity. In each of these, great apes possess rudimentary abilities, but the maturation of humans’ evolved capacities for shared intentionality transform these abilities into uniquely human cognition and sociality. “How does human psychological growth run in the first seven years, in particular how does it instill ‘culture’ in us? ...Most of all, how does the capacity for shared intentionality and self-regulation evolve in people? This is a very thoughtful and also important book.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “Theoretically daring and experimentally ingenious, Becoming Human squarely tackles the abiding question of what makes us human.” —Susan Gelman “Destined to become a classic. Anyone who is interested in cognitive science, child development, human evolution, or comparative psychology should read this book.” —Andrew Meltzoff
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674980859
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 393
Book Description
Winner of the William James Book Award Winner of the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award “A landmark in our understanding of human development.” —Paul Harris, author of Trusting What You’re Told “Magisterial...Makes an impressive argument that most distinctly human traits are established early in childhood and that the general chronology in which these traits appear can...be identified.” —Wall Street Journal Virtually all theories of how humans have become such a distinctive species focus on evolution. Becoming Human looks instead to development and reveals how those things that make us unique are constructed during the first seven years of a child’s life. In this groundbreaking work, Michael Tomasello draws from three decades of experimental research with chimpanzees, bonobos, and children to propose a new framework for psychological growth between birth and seven years of age. He identifies eight pathways that differentiate humans from their primate relatives: social cognition, communication, cultural learning, cooperative thinking, collaboration, prosociality, social norms, and moral identity. In each of these, great apes possess rudimentary abilities, but the maturation of humans’ evolved capacities for shared intentionality transform these abilities into uniquely human cognition and sociality. “How does human psychological growth run in the first seven years, in particular how does it instill ‘culture’ in us? ...Most of all, how does the capacity for shared intentionality and self-regulation evolve in people? This is a very thoughtful and also important book.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “Theoretically daring and experimentally ingenious, Becoming Human squarely tackles the abiding question of what makes us human.” —Susan Gelman “Destined to become a classic. Anyone who is interested in cognitive science, child development, human evolution, or comparative psychology should read this book.” —Andrew Meltzoff
What Makes Us Humans
Author: Michel Tibayrenc
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536168532
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The knowledge on human biology is blooming. Progresses in genomics, epigenetics, neurobiology, human evolution, population genetics, and prehistory is extremely fast presently. However, few bridges have been launched between these fields on one hand, and human sciences (ethics, politics, psychoanalysis, philosophy) on the other hand. Now knowledge on human nature and on what makes us specifically humans do need tight collaborations between biological and human sciences.One of the specific goals of the book is to sort out, in our knowledge on human nature, what is: (i) strongly supported; (ii) still speculative; (iii) still extremely tentative; (iv) obviously (sometimes purposely) misleading; (v) definitely to be rejected. Such a sorting out is sorely needed, since this theme is politically loaded and full of propaganda, storytelling and "fake news". This kind of endeavor is urgent because there is now a strong tendency in the general public to lose confidence in science and to believe in alternate sources of knowledge with uncertain backgrounds (social networks, internet).This books uniquely offers a thorough discussion, based on biology as well as on human sciences, on major societal debates of the time, such as origin of humankind, human genetic diversity, biology of cognition, science in front of intolerant ideologies, science and religion, and science and creationism/intelligent design. Its specific feature is sorted by the present states of knowledge, what is robust, then still speculative, unintentionally or intentionally ("scientific fake news") misleading, and obviously wrong. Thorough updating is based on more than 300 references from the specialized literature as well as from the general media. The book, which is written in an accessible language and is completed with a glossary of specialized terms, will be therefore profitable to specialists of the concerned fields, university professors, teachers, students, as well as the general public.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536168532
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The knowledge on human biology is blooming. Progresses in genomics, epigenetics, neurobiology, human evolution, population genetics, and prehistory is extremely fast presently. However, few bridges have been launched between these fields on one hand, and human sciences (ethics, politics, psychoanalysis, philosophy) on the other hand. Now knowledge on human nature and on what makes us specifically humans do need tight collaborations between biological and human sciences.One of the specific goals of the book is to sort out, in our knowledge on human nature, what is: (i) strongly supported; (ii) still speculative; (iii) still extremely tentative; (iv) obviously (sometimes purposely) misleading; (v) definitely to be rejected. Such a sorting out is sorely needed, since this theme is politically loaded and full of propaganda, storytelling and "fake news". This kind of endeavor is urgent because there is now a strong tendency in the general public to lose confidence in science and to believe in alternate sources of knowledge with uncertain backgrounds (social networks, internet).This books uniquely offers a thorough discussion, based on biology as well as on human sciences, on major societal debates of the time, such as origin of humankind, human genetic diversity, biology of cognition, science in front of intolerant ideologies, science and religion, and science and creationism/intelligent design. Its specific feature is sorted by the present states of knowledge, what is robust, then still speculative, unintentionally or intentionally ("scientific fake news") misleading, and obviously wrong. Thorough updating is based on more than 300 references from the specialized literature as well as from the general media. The book, which is written in an accessible language and is completed with a glossary of specialized terms, will be therefore profitable to specialists of the concerned fields, university professors, teachers, students, as well as the general public.
Animals Make Us Human
Author: Temple Grandin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0151014892
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
The author of "Animals in Translation" employs her own experience with autism and her background as an animal scientist to show how to give animals the best and happiest life.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0151014892
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
The author of "Animals in Translation" employs her own experience with autism and her background as an animal scientist to show how to give animals the best and happiest life.
Catching Fire
Author: Richard Wrangham
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847652107
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes". Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. "This notion is surprising, fresh and, in the hands of Richard Wrangham, utterly persuasive ... Big, new ideas do not come along often in evolution these days, but this is one." -Matt Ridley, author of Genome
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847652107
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: the habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes". Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. "This notion is surprising, fresh and, in the hands of Richard Wrangham, utterly persuasive ... Big, new ideas do not come along often in evolution these days, but this is one." -Matt Ridley, author of Genome
The Gap
Author: Thomas Suddendorf
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465069843
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
There exists an undeniable chasm between the capacities of humans and those of animals. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, whereas even our closest animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their dwindling habitats. Yet despite longstanding debates, the nature of this apparent gap has remained unclear. What exactly is the difference between our minds and theirs? In The Gap, psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose. Drawing on two decades of research on apes, children, and human evolution, he surveys the abilities most often cited as uniquely human -- language, intelligence, morality, culture, theory of mind, and mental time travel -- and finds that two traits account for most of the ways in which our minds appear so distinct: Namely, our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios, and our insatiable drive to link our minds together. These two traits explain how our species was able to amplify qualities that we inherited in parallel with our animal counterparts; transforming animal communication into language, memory into mental time travel, sociality into mind reading, problem solving into abstract reasoning, traditions into culture, and empathy into morality. Suddendorf concludes with the provocative suggestion that our unrivalled status may be our own creation -- and that the gap is growing wider not so much because we are becoming smarter but because we are killing off our closest intelligent animal relatives. Weaving together the latest findings in animal behavior, child development, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience, this book will change the way we think about our place in nature. A major argument for reconsidering what makes us human, The Gap is essential reading for anyone interested in our evolutionary origins and our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465069843
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
There exists an undeniable chasm between the capacities of humans and those of animals. Our minds have spawned civilizations and technologies that have changed the face of the Earth, whereas even our closest animal relatives sit unobtrusively in their dwindling habitats. Yet despite longstanding debates, the nature of this apparent gap has remained unclear. What exactly is the difference between our minds and theirs? In The Gap, psychologist Thomas Suddendorf provides a definitive account of the mental qualities that separate humans from other animals, as well as how these differences arose. Drawing on two decades of research on apes, children, and human evolution, he surveys the abilities most often cited as uniquely human -- language, intelligence, morality, culture, theory of mind, and mental time travel -- and finds that two traits account for most of the ways in which our minds appear so distinct: Namely, our open-ended ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios, and our insatiable drive to link our minds together. These two traits explain how our species was able to amplify qualities that we inherited in parallel with our animal counterparts; transforming animal communication into language, memory into mental time travel, sociality into mind reading, problem solving into abstract reasoning, traditions into culture, and empathy into morality. Suddendorf concludes with the provocative suggestion that our unrivalled status may be our own creation -- and that the gap is growing wider not so much because we are becoming smarter but because we are killing off our closest intelligent animal relatives. Weaving together the latest findings in animal behavior, child development, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience, this book will change the way we think about our place in nature. A major argument for reconsidering what makes us human, The Gap is essential reading for anyone interested in our evolutionary origins and our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom.
Does Skill Make Us Human?
Author: Natasha Iskander
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217572
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Regulation : how the politics of skill become law -- Production : how skill makes cities -- Skill : how skill is embodied and what it means for the control of bodies -- Protest : how skillful practice becomes resistance -- Body : how definitions of skill cause injury -- Earth : how the politics of skill shape responses to climate change.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217572
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Regulation : how the politics of skill become law -- Production : how skill makes cities -- Skill : how skill is embodied and what it means for the control of bodies -- Protest : how skillful practice becomes resistance -- Body : how definitions of skill cause injury -- Earth : how the politics of skill shape responses to climate change.
Behave
Author: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 801
Book Description
New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 801
Book Description
New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.
Feline Philosophy
Author: John Gray
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374718792
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 99
Book Description
The author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to cats—and what they reveal about humans' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne's house cat, whose un-examined life may have been the one worth living; Meo, the Vietnam War survivor with an unshakable capacity for "fearless joy"; and Colette's Saha, the feline heroine of her subversive short story "The Cat", a parable about the pitfalls of human jealousy. Exploring the nature of cats, and what we can learn from it, Gray offers a profound, thought-provoking meditation on the follies of human exceptionalism and our fundamentally vulnerable and lonely condition. He charts a path toward a life without illusions and delusions, revealing how we can endure both crisis and transformation, and adapt to a changed scene, as cats have always done.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374718792
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 99
Book Description
The author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to cats—and what they reveal about humans' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne's house cat, whose un-examined life may have been the one worth living; Meo, the Vietnam War survivor with an unshakable capacity for "fearless joy"; and Colette's Saha, the feline heroine of her subversive short story "The Cat", a parable about the pitfalls of human jealousy. Exploring the nature of cats, and what we can learn from it, Gray offers a profound, thought-provoking meditation on the follies of human exceptionalism and our fundamentally vulnerable and lonely condition. He charts a path toward a life without illusions and delusions, revealing how we can endure both crisis and transformation, and adapt to a changed scene, as cats have always done.
The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War, and the Evolution of Us
Author: Adam Rutherford
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
ISBN: 1615195327
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
“Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review Publisher’s Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal. In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
ISBN: 1615195327
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
“Rutherford describes [The Book of Humans] as being about the paradox of how our evolutionary journey turned ‘an otherwise average ape’ into one capable of creating complex tools, art, music, science, and engineering. It’s an intriguing question, one his book sets against descriptions of the infinitely amusing strategies and antics of a dizzying array of animals.”—The New York Times Book Review Publisher’s Note: The Book of Humans was previously published in hardcover as Humanimal. In this new evolutionary history, geneticist Adam Rutherford explores the profound paradox of the human animal. Looking for answers across the animal kingdom, he finds that many things once considered exclusively human are not: We aren’t the only species that “speaks,” makes tools, or has sex outside of procreation. Seeing as our genome is 98 percent identical to a chimpanzee’s, our DNA doesn’t set us far apart, either. How, then, did we develop the most complex culture ever observed? The Book of Humans proves that we are animals indeed—and reveals how we truly are extraordinary.