Darwin's unfinished symphony : how culture made the human mind / Kevin N. Laland.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Laland, Kevin N., author.

Series:

Princeton scholarship online.

Princeton scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cognition and culture.

Human evolution.

Social evolution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 450 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for culture, from the arts and language to science and technology. But how did the human mind-and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture-evolve from its roots in animal behavior? Darwin's Unfinished Symphony presents a captivating new theory of human cognitive evolution. This compelling and accessible book reveals how culture is not just the magnificent end product of an evolutionary process that produced a species unlike all others-it is also the key driving force behind that process. Kevin Laland tells the story of the painstaking fieldwork, the key experiments, the false leads, and the stunning scientific breakthroughs that led to this new understanding of how culture transformed human evolution. It is the story of how Darwin's intellectual descendants picked up where he left off and took up the challenge of providing a scientific account of the evolution of the human mind.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Foreword

Part I. Foundations Of Culture

Chapter 1. Darwin'S Unfinished Symphony

Chapter 2. Ubiquitous Copying

Chapter 3. Why Copy?

Chapter 4. A Tale of Two Fishes

Chapter 5. The Roots of Creativity

Part II. The Evolution Of the Mind

Chapter 6. The Evolution of Intelligence

Chapter 7. High Fidelity

Chapter 8. Why We Alone Have Language

Chapter 9. Gene- Culture Coevolution

Chapter 10. The Dawn of Civilization

Chapter 11. Foundations of Cooperation

Chapter 12. The Arts

Epilogue: Awe Without Wonder

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691184470

069118447X

OCLC:

1049677754