A Different Kind of Animal (eBook)

How Culture Transformed Our Species

Robert Boyd (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
248 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-1-4008-8852-8 (ISBN)

Infos

How our ability to learn from each other has been the essential ingredient to our remarkable success as a speciesHuman beings are a very different kind of animal. We have evolved to become the most dominant species on Earth. We have a larger geographical range and process more energy than any other creature alive. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive ability-people are just smarter than all the rest. But in this compelling book, Robert Boyd argues that culture-our ability to learn from each other-has been the essential ingredient of our remarkable success.A Different Kind of Animal demonstrates that while people are smart, we are not nearly smart enough to have solved the vast array of problems that confronted our species as it spread across the globe. Over the past two million years, culture has evolved to enable human populations to accumulate superb local adaptations that no individual could ever have invented on their own. It has also made possible the evolution of social norms that allow humans to make common cause with large groups of unrelated individuals, a kind of society not seen anywhere else in nature. This unique combination of cultural adaptation and large-scale cooperation has transformed our species and assured our survival-making us the different kind of animal we are today.Based on the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, A Different Kind of Animal features challenging responses by biologist H. Allen Orr, philosopher Kim Sterelny, economist Paul Seabright, and evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, as well as an introduction by Stephen Macedo.

Autor

Robert Boyd is Origins Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. His books include How Humans Evolved, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.10.2017
• Reihe/Serie: The University Center for Human Values Series
• Reihe/Serie: The University Center for Human Values Series
• Zusatzinfo: 5 halftones. 21 line illus. 1 table.
• Verlagsort: Princeton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Verhaltenstherapie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Evolution
• Schlagworte: Adaptation • Altruism • anthropologist • Arizona State University • Behavior • Behavioral Ecology • biologist • Biology • Cassava • Causality • causal reasoning • Charles Darwin • Chimpanzee • ciguatera • collective intelligence • common descent • Competition • Cooperation • Cost–benefit analysis • Cultural Evolution • cultural group selection • Cultural Learning • Culture • Darwinism • defection • Ecology • Emergence • encyclopedic knowledge • ethnic group • Eusociality • Evolution • Evolutionary anthropology • evolutionary biology • Evolutionary Psychology • Explanation • foraging • Frame problem • geneticist • group selection • Handbook • Heuristic • human behavior • Human behavioral ecology • Human Intelligence • Hunter-Gatherer • Imitation • inclusive fitness • inference • Institution • John Templeton Foundation • Kim Sterelny • kinship • learning • Lecture • Local adaptation • Mammal • Morality • Motivation • Natural selection • Norm (social) • observational learning • Opportunism • Philosopher • philosophy of science • Politics • Population Genetics • Population Size • positive feedback • Prediction • Probability • Psychology • reciprocal altruism • Requirement • Research Program • result • Sampling (Statistics) • Scientist • Self-Denial • Self-Interest • Social cue • Social Evolution • Social Intelligence • Social Learning Theory • social relation • Social Science • Society • Sociocultural evolution • Speciation • Symptom • Technology • theory • Theory of Mind • Thought • Trade-off • Traditional society • Trait Theory • Uncertainty • Value (ethics) • war • warfare
• ISBN-10: 1-4008-8852-2 / 1400888522
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4008-8852-8 / 9781400888528