The accidental Homo sapiens : genetics, behavior, and free will / Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle
By: Tattersall, Ian [author].
Contributor(s): DeSalle, Rob [author].
Publisher: New York : Pegasus Books, ©2019Edition: First Pegasus Books edition.Description: xviii, 222 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781643130262.Subject(s): Evolutionary psychology | Evolutionary genetics | Human evolution | Behavior evolution | Cognition and culture | Evolution (Biology)Genre/Form: Print books.| Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Shelf | BF698.95 .T38 2019 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU00000000015248 |
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| BF698.9 .S55 O94 2020 The Oxford handbook of psychological situations / | BF698.95 .A96 2015 Gaining control / | BF698.95 .D85 2016 Human evolution : our brains and behavior / | BF698.95 .T38 2019 The accidental Homo sapiens : genetics, behavior, and free will / | BF701 .C676 1994 The evolving self : a psychology for the third millennium / | BF713 .C847 2014 Cultural and contextual perspectives on developmental risk and well-being / | BF717 .S49 2014 Play matters / |
"April 2019"--Title page verso
Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-212) and index
Genes, evolution, and the bell curve -- Science and behavior : trapped between simplicity and complexity -- Emergence of the human cognitive style -- Genes, people, and behavior -- Human beings and choice
What happens now that human population has outpaced biological natural selection? Two leading scientists reveal how we became who we are--and what we might become
"When you think of evolution, the picture that most likely comes to mind is a straight-forward progression, the iconic illustration of a primate morphing into a proud, upright human being. But in reality, random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lions to lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to become fixed in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely that this will happen in large ones. With our enormous, close-packed, and seemingly inexorably expanding population, humanity has fallen under the influence of the famous (or infamous) "bell curve." Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle's revelatory new book explores what the future of our species could hold, while simultaneously revealing what we didn't become--and what we won't become. A cognitively unique species, and our actions fall on a bell curve as well. Individual people may be saintly or evil; generous or grasping; narrow-minded or visionary. But any attempt to characterize our species must embrace all of its members and so all of these antitheses. It is possible not just for the species, but for a single individual to be all of these things--even in the same day. We all fall somewhere within the giant hyperspace of the human condition that these curves describe. The Accidental Homo Sapiens shows readers that though humanity now exists on this bell curve, we are far from a stagnant species. Tattersall and DeSalle reveal how biological evolution in modern humans has given way to a cultural dynamic that is unlike anything else the Earth has ever witnessed, and that will keep life interesting--perhaps sometimes too interesting--for as long as we exist on this planet"--