Kevin N. Laland is professor of behavioral and evolutionary biology at the University of St Andrews. His books include Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models and Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution (both Princeton).
Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and language to science and technology. 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 shows how the learned and socially transmitted activities of our ancestors shaped our intellects through accelerating cycles of evolutionary feedback. The truly unique characteristics of our species—such as our intelligence, language, teaching, and cooperation—are not adaptive responses to predators, disease, or other external conditions. Rather, humans are creatures of their own making. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research, and bringing it to life with vivid natural history, Laland explains how animals imitate, innovate, and have remarkable traditions of their own. He traces our rise from scavenger apes in prehistory to modern humans able to design iPhones, dance the tango, and send astronauts into space.
This book 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.
于如今世界来说,进化论已经日渐深入人心,即使说不出进化论到底有何确切内涵,也多少听说过达尔文和进化论这两个名词,还有一些人能够说得出“适者生存”“物竞天择”“用进废退”这些看起来颇有些高大上的名词。但实际上,这些内容可不是达尔文一个人想出来的,他也没有解决...
评分 评分我们是从哪儿来的? 这里有一件非常有意思的事情,为什么我们要这么问?问出这个问题,本身就说明了这个问题的一部分,我们不一样。不自大的说,我们统治了这个地球,我们拥有宽阔的食谱,发达的科学技术,丰富的人文艺术,不止一种复杂的语言,我们做到了其他生物都没有做到的...
评分一提到“进化”,脑子里瞬间闪出的便是达尔文,曾经对科学结论深信不疑,年少时也不曾怀疑过达尔文的进化论,没想到随着年岁增长而三观刷新,渐渐理解科学理论从不会定论,而是在不断怀疑中用科学手段持续求证,探索新知的过程通过阅读用自己的方式来理解万物,于是我走入了《...
评分一提到“进化”,脑子里瞬间闪出的便是达尔文,曾经对科学结论深信不疑,年少时也不曾怀疑过达尔文的进化论,没想到随着年岁增长而三观刷新,渐渐理解科学理论从不会定论,而是在不断怀疑中用科学手段持续求证,探索新知的过程通过阅读用自己的方式来理解万物,于是我走入了《...
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