A different kind of animal : how culture transformed our species / Robert Boyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boyd, Robert, 1948- author.

Series:

University Center for Human Values series.

Princeton scholarship online.

The University Center for Human Values Series ; 46

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social evolution.

Human evolution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 pages) : illustrations, graphs.

Place of Publication:

2017.

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION / Macedo, Stephen

CHAPTER 1. Not by Brains Alone: The Vital Role Of Culture In Human Adaptation

CHAPTER 2. Beyond Kith And Kin: Culture And The Scale Of Human Cooperation

COMMENTS

CHAPTER 3. Imitation, Hayek, and the Significance of Cultural Learning / Orr, H. Allen

CHAPTER 4. Adaption Without Insight? / Sterelny, Kim

CHAPTER 5. Inference and Hypothesis Testing in Cultural Evolution / Mace, Ruth

CHAPTER 6. Adaptable, Cooperative, Manipulative, and Rivalrous / Seabright, Paul

RESPONSE

CHAPTER 7. Culture, Beliefs, and Decisions / Boyd, Robert

Notes

References

Contributors

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:

1-4008-8852-2

OCLC:

1004271464