A Different Kind of Animal: How Culture Transformed Our Species (The University Center for Human Values Series)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.75 (861 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0691177732 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 296 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-11-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
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. We have a larger geographical range and process more energy than any other creature alive. 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. This astonishing transformation is usually explained in terms of cognitive abilitypeople are just smarter than all the rest. This unique combination of cultural adaptation and large-scale cooperation has transformed our species and assured our survivalmaking 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 Allen Orr, philosopher Kim Sterelny, economist Paul Seabright, and evolutionary anthropologist Ruth Mace, as well as an introduction by Stephen Macedo.. 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. But in this compelling book, Robert Boyd a
. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona. His books include How Humans Evolved, Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, and The Origin and Evolution of Cultures. Robert Boyd is Origins Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University
Boyd shows here in compelling style how our possession of culturethe passing on of learned informationexplains the highs, lows, and contradictions in our behaviors."--Mark Pagel, author of Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind"What makes us unique? Are we really just smart chimpanzees? Why is our species both so cooperative and yet so violent? Addressing these questions, Robert Boyd adroitly combines detailed analyses of diverse societies, crystal-clear experimental studies, and rich descriptions of hunter-gatherer life with the precision that only mathematics can provide. From th