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The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.
Provides an accessible introduction to the evolutionary behavioral sciences that gives due attention to both evolution and culture
Explores Darwinian explanations for some of the most important elements of human life, including sex differences, romantic relationships, parental love, altruism, religion, and language
Discusses the latest and most influential ideas in cultural evolutionary theory, including cumulative cultural evolution, cultural group selection, Dawkins' meme theory, and gene-culture coevolution
1. The alien's challenge
2. Darwin comes to mind
3. The SeXX/XY animal
4. The dating, mating, baby-making animal
5. The altruistic animal
6. The cultural animal
Appendix A: how to win an argument with a blank slater
Appendix B: how to win an argument with an anti-memeticist.
Description
The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.
Provides an accessible introduction to the evolutionary behavioral sciences that gives due attention to both evolution and culture
Explores Darwinian explanations for some of the most important elements of human life, including sex differences, romantic relationships, parental love, altruism, religion, and language
Discusses the latest and most influential ideas in cultural evolutionary theory, including cumulative cultural evolution, cultural group selection, Dawkins' meme theory, and gene-culture coevolution
