In this book, he expands the points he has made, and claims that this debate is not so much about religion versus science, as about the nature of science itself. With infectious enthusiasm, he reveals the mechanics of evolutionary theory, explains how it is rooted in the testable and verifiable scientific method, and why it is therefore a sound explanation of our beginning. He argues passionately that to continue to assert otherwise, to continue to insist that creationism has a place in the science classroom is harmful not only to our children, but to the future of the greater world as well.

    Our bodies are a quirky mix of new and old, with strokes of genius alongside glitches and imperfections which are all inherited from distant ancestors. Our development and evolutionary past explains why, as embryos, we have what look like gills, and as adults we suffer from back pain.This is a tale of discovery, not only exploring why and how we have developed as we have, but also looking at the history of our anatomical understanding. It combines the remarkable skills and qualifications Alice Roberts has as a doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist and writer. Above all, she has a rare ability to make science accessible, relevant and interesting to mainstream audiences and readers.

    They force us to confront a fundamental biological problem: how can something as large and complex as a human body organize itself from the simplicity of a fertilized egg? A convergence of ideas from embryology, genetics, physics, networks, and control theory has begun to provide real answers. Based on the central principle of 'adaptive self-organization, ' it explains how the interactions of many cells, and of the tiny molecular machines that run them, can organize tissue structures vastly larger than themselves, correcting errors as they go along and creating new layers of complexity where there were none before.Life Unfolding tells the story of human development from egg to adult, from this perspective, showing how our whole understanding of how we come to be has been transformed in recent years. Highlighting how embryological knowledge is being used to understand why bodies age and fail, Jamie A. Daviesexplores the profound and fascinating impacts of our newfound knowledge.

    Beginning with the study of DNA in Egyptian mummies in the early 1980s and culminating in the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome in 2010, Neanderthal Man describes the events, intrigues, failures, and triumphs of these scientifically rich years through the lens of the pioneer and inventor of the field of ancient DNA.We learn that Neanderthal genes offer a unique window into the lives of our hominin relatives and may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of why humans survived while Neanderthals went extinct. Drawing on genetic and fossil clues, Pääbo explores what is known about the origin of modern humans and their relationship to the Neanderthals and describes the fierce debate surrounding the nature of the two species’ interactions. His findings have not only redrawn our family tree, but recast the fundamentals of human history—the biological beginnings of fully modern Homo sapiens, the direct ancestors of all people alive today.A riveting story about a visionary researcher and the nature of scientific inquiry, Neanderthal Man offers rich insight into the fundamental question of who we are.

    Get ready to unthink what you thought you knew and journey into the deep, dark depths of the Jurassic.The discovery of the first feathered dinosaur in China in 1996 sent shockwaves through the palaeontological world. Were the feathers part of a complex mating ritual, or a stepping stone in the evolution of flight? And just how closely related is T. rex to a chicken? Award-winning journalist John Pickrell reveals how dinosaurs developed flight and became the birds in our backyards. He delves into the latest discoveries in China, the US, Europe and uncovers a thriving black market in fossils and infighting between dinosaur hunters, plus the controversial plan to use a chicken to bring dinosaurs back from the dead.

    Like no other work that we are aware of, it is authored by nine Ph.D. scientists to produce a coordinated, coherent, powerful argument. All of the authors received their doctorates from similar secular universities as their evolutionary counterparts. Each is a specialist in a field relevant to the subject written about: Natural selection, origin of life, geology, genetics, radiometric dating, the fossil record, cosmology, and ethics. Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels directly demolishes the very pillars of the belief system that underpins our now-secular culture—evolutionary naturalism. It’s coupled with the Biblical command to reach the lost with the Bible’s Good News. In a nutshell, it’s a comprehensive outreach tool like no other. The nine Ph.D. scientists are Donald Batten, Robert Carter, David Catchpoole, John Hartnett, Mark Harwood, Jim Mason, Jonathan Sarfati, Emil Silvestru and Tasman Walker. Foreword by Carl Wieland and edited by Robert Carter.

    Researching private parts was long considered taboo, but scientists are now beginning to understand that the wild diversity of sex organs across species can tell us a lot about evolution. Menno Schilthuizen invites readers to join him as he uncovers the ways the shapes and functions of genitalia have been molded by complex Darwinian struggles: penises that have lost their spines but evolved appendages to displace sperm; female orgasms that select or reject semen from males, in turn subtly modifying the females’ genital shape. We learn why spiders masturbate into miniature webs, discover she dungflies that store sperm from attractive males in their bellies, and see how, when it comes to outlandish appendages and bizarre behaviors, humans are downright boring. Nature’s Nether Regions joyfully demonstrates that the more we learn about the multiform private parts of animals, the more we understand our own unique place in the great diversity of life.

    But what were and are the true potentates of our planet? Insects, says Scott Richard Shaw—millions and millions of insect species. Starting in the shallow oceans of ancient Earth and ending in the far reaches of outer space—where, Shaw proposes, insect-like aliens may have achieved similar preeminence—Planet of the Bugs spins a sweeping account of insects’ evolution from humble arthropod ancestors into the bugs we know and love (or fear and hate) today. Leaving no stone unturned, Shaw explores how evolutionary innovations such as small body size, wings, metamorphosis, and parasitic behavior have enabled insects to disperse widely, occupy increasingly narrow niches, and survive global catastrophes in their rise to dominance. Through buggy tales by turns bizarre and comical—from caddisflies that construct portable houses or weave silken aquatic nets to trap floating debris, to parasitic wasp larvae that develop in the blood of host insects and, by storing waste products in their rear ends, are able to postpone defecation until after they emerge—he not only unearths how changes in our planet’s geology, flora, and fauna contributed to insects’ success, but also how, in return, insects came to shape terrestrial ecosystems and amplify biodiversity. Indeed, in his visits to hyperdiverse rain forests to highlight the current insect extinction crisis, Shaw reaffirms just how crucial these tiny beings are to planetary health and human survival. In this age of honeybee die-offs and bedbugs hitching rides in the spines of library books, Planet of the Bugs charms with humor, affection, and insight into the world’s six-legged creatures, revealing an essential importance that resonates across time and space.

    Lloyd Pye is known for his hard-hitting combination of scientific facts with jargon-free, easy to understand explanations. Filled with "see it with your own eyes" evidence ranging from the moment that the Earth came into existence, to recent discoveries in our own DNA, this book will make you question many of the fundamental theories that are often mistaken for proven fact. This eBook is the updated and revised version of Part 1 of Pye's best seller "Everything You Know Is Wrong," crammed with page after page of brand new archaeological and scientific evidence that was not available when the original print book was published.

    Now, faced with the threat of nuclear weapons and the effects of climate change, it seems our innate tendencies for violence and invention have led us to a crucial tipping point. Where did these traits come from? Are they part of our species immutable destiny? Or is there hope for our species’ future if we change? With fascinating facts and his unparalleled readability, Diamond intended his book to improve the world that today’s young people will inherit. Triangle Square’s The Third Chimpanzee for Young People is a book for future generation and the future they’ll help build. From the Hardcover edition.

    Whether you stand in a specific religious tradition, consider yourself "spiritual but not religious," or are merely an observer of the current religious and spiritual landscape, the content in this book will equip you with an intelligent and intellectually rigorous orientation to spiritual transformation. Have you ever wanted to know the difference between a temporary state experience and an on going experience of spiritual awakening? Did you know that there are very real differences between the process of spiritual awakening and one's capacity for spiritual intelligence? With Integral Theory as a platform, Streams of Wisdom employs crystal clear discrimination to distinguish three core vectors of spiritual development. Using concrete examples from our world's great religious traditions to highlight each dimension of growth, DiPerna builds the case that the deepest aspects of spiritual transformation are universal across traditions. This means that even if the surface features of spiritual development tend to vary from one tradition to the next, the underlying reality and path of development is consistent and invariant. With access to all the wisdom streams of Earth, we now know, through comparative analysis, that similar spiritual potentials are available to one and all. Streams of Wisdom will help you make sense of your own spiritual experiences. It will help you better understand where you are on the spiritual path and what to expect next. There are wondrous possibilities awaiting discovery. Streams of Wisdom points to a future of positivity for us all. This book serves as volume 1 of a series titled Integral Religion and Spirituality. The series is designed to help catalyze the emergence of a trans-lineage world spirituality.

    It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ ofplasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how theydevelop, what information they use, and what they do with that information.The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using therich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between nativist approaches to development, based on innateness, and empiricist approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependentspecies is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends.

    It is a scientific revolution built upon the tools of molecular biology, with which we probe and prod the living world in ways unimaginable a few decades ago. Need to track a bacterium at the root of a hospital outbreak? No problem: the offending germ'scomplete genetic profile can be obtained in 24 hours. We insert human DNA into E. coli bacteria to produce our insulin.It is natural to look at biotechnology in the 21st century with a mix of wonder and fear. But biotechnology is not as 'unnatural' as one might think. All living organisms use the same molecular processes to replicate their genetic material and the same basic code to 'read' their genes. Thesimilarities can be seen in their DNA. Here, John Archibald shows how evolution has been 'plugging-and-playing' with the subcellular components of life from the very beginning and continues to do so today. For evidence, we need look no further than the inner workings of our own cells. Molecularbiology has allowed us to gaze back more than three billion years, revealing the microbial mergers and acquisitions that underpin the development of complex life. One Plus One Equals One tells the story of how we have come to this realization and its implications.

    This legendary saga began over two billion years ago, when one bacterium entered another without being digested, ultimately creating the first mitochondrion. Since then, for life to exist beyond single-celled bacteria, it’s the mitochondria that are responsible for this life-giving energy. Yet, current research has also revealed a dark side; many seemingly unconnected degenerative diseases have their roots in dysfunctional mitochondria. Modern research, however, has also endowed us with the knowledge on how to optimize its function, which is of critical importance to our health and longevity. By reading this book, you are about to dive into this epic story, and learn how to add years to your life, and life to your years.

    Since then, we have sequenced the full genomes of a number of mankind's primate relatives at a remarkable rate. The genomes of the common chimpanzee(2005) and bonobo (2012), orangutan (2011), gorilla (2012), and macaque monkey (2007) have already been identified, and the determination of other primate genomes is well underway. Researchers are beginning to unravel our full genomic history, comparing it with closely related species to answerage-old questions about how and when we evolved. For the first time, we are finding our own ancestors in our genome and are thereby gleaning new information about our evolutionary past.In Ancestors in Our Genome, molecular anthropologist Eugene E. Harris presents us with a complete and up-to-date account of the evolution of the human genome and our species. Written from the perspective of population genetics, and in simple terms, the book traces human origins back to their sourceamong our earliest human ancestors, and explains many of the most intriguing questions that genome scientists are currently working to answer. For example, what does the high level of discordance among the gene trees of humans and the African great apes tell us about our respective separations fromour common ancestor? Was our separation from the apes fast or slow, and when and why did it occur? Where, when, and how did our modern species evolve? How do we search across genomes to find the genomic underpinnings of our large and complex brains and language abilities? How can we find the genomicbases for life at high altitudes, for lactose tolerance, resistance to disease, and for our different skin pigmentations? How and when did we interbreed with Neandertals and the recently discovered ancient Denisovans of Asia? Harris draws upon extensive experience researching primate evolution inorder to deliver a lively and thorough history of human evolution. Ancestors in Our Genome is the most complete discussion of our current understanding of the human genome available.

    Humans: from the beginning will appeal to anybody who reads about these discoveries, is intrigued by them, and would like to know more about prehistory. Now brought fully up to date for 2015, Humans: from the beginning is a single-volume guide to the human past. Drawing upon expert literature and the latest multi-disciplinary research, this rigorous but accessible book traces the whole of the human story from the first apes to the first cities. The end product of five years of research, it has also been planned from the ground up to take advantage of the eBook format and ease access to visual matter, references and glossary items. Humans: from the beginning is written for the non-specialist, but it is sufficiently comprehensive in scope, rigorous in content, and well-referenced to serve as an ideal ‘one-stop’ text not only for undergraduate students of relevant disciplines, but also to postgraduates, researchers and other academics seeking to broaden their knowledge. This 32-chapter work presents an even-handed coverage of topics including: • How climate change has long played a pivotal role in our affairs and those of our ancestors. • How humans evolved from apes at a time when the apes were facing extinction. • Why the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees (our closest living relatives) might have been more like a human than a chimpanzee. • A possible Asian rather than African origin for the earliest humans. • Why the Neanderthals were not the dimwits of popular imagination. • How language and modern human behaviour evolved: an examination of theories including those of Robin Dunbar, Steven Mithen and Derek Bickerton. • How the small group of modern humans that eventually colonised the whole of the non-African world might have started from Arabia rather than Africa. • David Lewis-Williams’ theory that the cave art of Ice Age Europe was linked to a shamanistic belief system that might be rooted in the very architecture of the human brain. • Why the Neolithic transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture was a lengthy process, with many down sides. • Colin Renfrew’s still-controversial theory that the spread of farming communities in Neolithic times was responsible for the languages now spoken in many parts of the world. • How an ‘Urban Revolution’ replaced egalitarian farming communities with socially-stratified kingdoms and city-states in just a few millennia. • How the complex, technological societies of today have much in common with not only the earliest states but much earlier primate societies.

    How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than anything a hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, saw humans as "divine exceptions" to natural selection. Darwin thought use of language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but his hypothesis remained an intriguing guess--until now. Combining state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking about language evolution, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a crucial problem that both biology and the cognitive sciences have hitherto ignored or evaded.What evolved first was neither language nor intelligence--merely normal animal communication plus displacement. That was enough to break restrictions on both thought and communication that bound all other animals. The brain self-organized to store and automatically process its new input, words. But words, which are inextricably linked to the concepts they represent, had to be accessible to consciousness. The inevitable consequence was a cognitive engine able to voluntarily merge both thoughts and words into meaningful combinations. Only in a third phase could language emerge, as humans began to tinker with a medium that, when used for communication, was adequate for speakers but suboptimal for hearers.Starting from humankind's remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary synthesis--one that instead of merely repeating "nature and nurture" clich s shows specifically and in a principled manner how and why the synthesis came about.

    Behind this movement is Chicago-based medical giant LyfeGen. The company dominates the biotech industry with their Sustain, an implantable artificial organ designed to grant its recipients near-immortality. But many of those recipients are suddenly dying. Biomedical scientist Preston Carter developed the Sustain to improve and save lives. Yet there are others that would see him fail. Extreme religious groups, radical movements, and competing corporations would prefer to see LyfeGen collapse rather than allow “the god organ” to fundamentally alter medicine and the human body. In a race against time, Carter must learn to trust resourceful journalist Audrey Cook. She may hold the key to discovering who is sabotaging the Sustain. And with the organ already implanted in his own body, Carter must uncover the truth before he’s killed by his invention.THE GOD ORGAN is a near-future medical thriller that takes the reader on a suspenseful ride filled with sinister conspiracies, intriguing biomedical science, and rampant corruption that will leave readers wondering just how dangerous becoming a god may really be.

    Trilobite fossils have been unearthed on every continent, with more than 20,000 species identified by science. One of the most arresting animals of our pre-dinosaur world, trilobites are also favorites among the fossil collectors of today, their crystalline eyes often the catalyst for a lifetime of paleontological devotion. And there is no collector more devoted—or more venerated—than Riccardo Levi-Setti. With The Trilobite Book, a much anticipated follow-up to his classic Trilobites, Levi-Setti brings us a glorious and revealing guide to these surreal arthropods of ancient Earth. Featuring specimens from Bohemia to Newfoundland, California to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, and Wales to the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Levi-Setti’s magnificent book reanimates these “butterflies of the seas” in 235 astonishing full-color photographs. All original, Levi-Setti’s images serve as the jumping-off point for tales of his global quests in search of these highly sought-after fossils; for discussions of their mineralogical origins, as revealed by their color; and for unraveling the role of the now-extinct trilobites in our planetary history. Sure to enthrall paleontologists with its scientific insights and amateur enthusiasts with its beautiful and informative images, The Trilobite Book combines the best of science, technology, aesthetics, and personal adventure. It will inspire new collectors for eras to come.

    As evidenced in the record, whales evolved from herbivorous forest-dwelling ancestors that resembled tiny deer to carnivorous monsters stalking lakes and rivers and to serpentlike denizens of the coast. Thewissen reports on his discoveries in the wilds of India and Pakistan, weaving a narrative that reveals the day-to-day adventures of fossil collection, enriching it with local flavors from South Asian culture and society. The reader senses the excitement of the digs as well as the rigors faced by scientific researchers, for whom each new insight gives rise to even more questions, and for whom at times the logistics of just staying alive may trump all science. In his search for an understanding of how modern whales live their lives, Thewissen also journeys to Japan and Alaska to study whales and wild dolphins. He finds answers to his questions about fossils by studying the anatomy of otters and porpoises and examining whale embryos under the microscope. In the book's final chapter, Thewissen argues for approaching whale evolution with the most powerful tools we have and for combining all the fields of science in pursuit of knowledge.

    While even the grandest works of Victorian English can prove difficult to modern readers, Darwin wrote his text in haste and under intense pressure. For an era in which Darwin is more talked about than read, Daniel Duzdevich offers a clear, modern English rendering of Darwin's first edition. Neither an abridgement nor a summary, this version might best be described as a "translation" for contemporary English readers. A monument to reasoned insight, the Origin illustrates the value of extensive reflection, carefully gathered evidence, and sound scientific reasoning. By removing the linguistic barriers to understanding and appreciating the Origin, this edition aims to bring 21st-century readers into closer contact with Darwin's revolutionary ideas.

    Robert Core proves a creational God initiated life in one-celled organisms and introduced Homo. In a surprise twist, the author uncovers that it is much more probable that chimpanzees arose from Man rather than vice versa.

    This volume represents a collaboration among physical and forensic anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists, and geochemists, among others, and presents the results of the scientific study of this remarkable find. Scholars address a range of topics, from basic aspects of osteological analysis to advanced ?research focused on Kennewick Man’s origins and his relationships to other populations. Interdisciplinary studies, comprehensive data collection and preservation, and applications of technology are all critical to telling Kennewick Man’s story.        Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an  Ancient American Skeleton is written for a discerning professional audience, yet the absorbing story of the remains, their discovery, their curation history, and the extensive amount of detail that skilled scientists have been able to glean from them will appeal to interested and informed general readers. These bones lay silent for nearly nine thousand years, but now, with the aid of dedicated researchers, they can speak about the life of one of the earliest human occupants of North America.

    In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Lee Spetner examines the latest scientific studies and offers compelling evidence that the data we have supports neither the fact of evolution that present life forms evolved from entirely different ones or the theory of evolution the mechanism of how that took place. Instead, the data actually supports an entirely different theory the Nonrandom Evolutionary Hypothesis, which, if correct, will have far-reaching consequences for humanity and revolutionize scientific research and education. This book is a must-read for scientists and laypeople alike.

    Some plants and animals have taken up residence in the region’s ancient mountains, others in its lakes and flowing rivers. Together, they weave a living fabric of sublime and fascinating beauty. These organisms come to life in North Shore, a comprehensive environmental history of one of Minnesota’s most beloved places.The story of this region unfolds through the five interconnected areas of Minnesota’s North Shore watershed—the meandering rivers of the Headwaters, the deep and dense forest of the Highlands, the rocky Nearshore, the drama of Lake Superior, and its mysterious islands, including Isle Royale and Susie Island archipelagos. Each section begins with an overview of the forces that have shaped the area, then the focus turns to a wide range of inhabitants, such as chorus frogs and star-nosed moles, butterworts and coaster brook trout, jeweled diatoms and pitcher plants, black bears and blue-spotted salamanders. Each chapter links to the region’s broader history, from the sculpting of the land by mile-high glaciers to the role of scientific exploration, the advent of logging, the development of tourism, and the changing global climate.North Shore reminds us that the natural history of this extraordinary region is still being created and that each of us—individually and collectively—are the authors of this ongoing narrative. Compelling and accessible, the book will provide readers with a science-based knowledge of the Minnesota North Shore watershed so that together we can write a new, hopeful chapter for its inhabitants, both human and wild.

    Presenting the best information on both sides of the debate, the book takes you on a fascinating discovery of the issues and their relevance to your faith. With an engaging style, diverse points, and numerous quotes of interest, the book is a fast-track guide to understanding why God is found in the details of this critical debate.

    On this model, largely taken for granted in modern societies, acts of selfishness, aggression, and ecological mindlessness are failures of will, moral problems that can be solved by acting in accordance with a higher rationality. But both ancient philosophy and recent scientific scholarship emphasize implicit systems, such as action schemas and perceptual filters that guide behavior and shape human development. In this integrative book, Darcia Narvaez argues that morality goes “all the way down” into our neurobiological and emotional development, and that a person’s moral architecture is largely established early on in life. Moral rationality and virtue emerge “bottom up” from lived experience, so it matters what that experience is. Bringing together deep anthropological history, ethical philosophy, and contemporary neurobiological science, she demonstrates where modern industrialized societies have fallen away from the cultural practices that made us human in the first place.Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality advances the field of developmental moral psychology in three key ways. First, it provides an evolutionary framework for early childhood experience grounded in developmental systems theory, encompassing not only genes but a wide array of environmental and epigenetic factors. Second, it proposes a neurobiological basis for the development of moral sensibilities and cognition, describing ethical functioning at multiple levels of complexity and context before turning to a theory of the emergence of wisdom. Finally, it embraces the sociocultural orientations of our ancestors and cousins in small-band hunter-gatherer societies—the norm for 99% of human history—for a re-envisioning of moral life, from the way we value and organize child raising to how we might frame a response to human-made global ecological collapse.Integrating the latest scholarship in clinical sciences and positive psychology, Narvaez proposes a developmentally informed ecological and ethical sensibility as a way to self-author and revise the ways we think about parenting and sociality. The techniques she describes point towards an alternative vision of moral development and flourishing, one that synthesizes traditional models of executive, top-down wisdom with “primal” wisdom built by multiple systems of biological and cultural influence from the ground up.

    Looking at the history of mankind, however, one has to add that "Ieisure is the mother of cultural improvement." Man's creative genius flourished only when his mind, freed from the worry of daily toils, was permitted to entertain apparently useless thoughts. In the same manner, one might say with regard to evolution that "natural selection mere(y tnodifted, while redundanry created." Natural selection has been extremely effective in policing alleHe mutations which arise in already existing gene loci. Because of natural selection, organisms have been able to adapt to changing environments, and by adaptive radiation many new species were created from a common ancestral form. Y et, being an effective policeman, natural selection is extremely conservative by nature. Had evolution been entirely dependent upon natural selection, from a bacterium only numerous forms of bacteria would have emerged. The creation of metazoans, vertebrates and finally mammals from unicellular organisms would have been quite impos sible, for such big leaps in evolution required the creation of new gene loci with previously nonexistent functions. Only the cistron which became redun dant was able to escape from the relentless pressure of natural selection, and by escaping, it accumulated formerly forbidden mutations to emerge as a new gene locus."

    But they are relative newcomers there. They evolved in North America and retain their greatest diversity in South America, while the only wild dromedaries are in Australia.This is a classic example of the contradictions of 'native' and 'invasive' species, a hot issue right now as the flip-side of biodiversity. Do we need to fear invaders? Can we control them? Do we choose the right targets? And are the natives always good guys?Thompson puts forward a fascinating array of narratives to explore this crucial question.

    In this much-anticipated book, Michael Tomasello weaves his twenty years of comparative studies of humans and great apes into a compelling argument that cooperative social interaction is the key to our cognitive uniqueness. Once our ancestors learned to put their heads together with others to pursue shared goals, humankind was on an evolutionary path all its own.Tomasello argues that our prehuman ancestors, like today's great apes, were social beings who could solve problems by thinking. But they were almost entirely competitive, aiming only at their individual goals. As ecological changes forced them into more cooperative living arrangements, early humans had to coordinate their actions and communicate their thoughts with collaborative partners. Tomasello's "shared intentionality hypothesis" captures how these more socially complex forms of life led to more conceptually complex forms of thinking. In order to survive, humans had to learn to see the world from multiple social perspectives, to draw socially recursive inferences, and to monitor their own thinking via the normative standards of the group. Even language and culture arose from the preexisting need to work together. What differentiates us most from other great apes, Tomasello proposes, are the new forms of thinking engendered by our new forms of collaborative and communicative interaction.A Natural History of Human Thinking is the most detailed scientific analysis to date of the connection between human sociality and cognition.

    It should. After a baby is born, a parent's first concern is for its physical health. The next concern is its sex. Only in the mostmodern societies does sex not virtually guarantee the type of future life a new human being will have. Even in modern societies, one's sex usually plays a large role in the path a life follows.Scientists have published thousands of papers on the subject, with the general conclusion being that men and women are mostly the same, whatever differences exist have been socialized, and what differences exist have to do with women bearing children and men being physically stronger. In Warriorsand Worriers, psychologist Joyce Benenson presents a new theory of sex differences, based on thirty years of research with young children and primates around the world. Her innovative theory focuses on how men and women stay alive. Benenson draws on a fascinating array of studies and stories thatexplore the ways boys and men deter their enemies, while girls and women find assistants to aid them in coping with vulnerable children and elders. This produces two social worlds for each sex which sets humans apart from most other primate species. Human males form cooperative groups that competeagainst out-groups, while human females exclude other females in their quest to find mates, female family members to invest in their children, and keep their own hearts ticking. In the process, Benenson turns upside down the familiar wisdom that women are more sociable than men and that men are morecompetitive than women.

    Language is conceptualized as a collective invention, on the model of writing or the wheel, and the book places social and cultural dynamics at the centre of its evolution: language emerged and further developed in human communities already suffused with meaning and communication, mimesis, ritual, song and dance, alloparenting, new divisions of labour and revolutionary changes in social relations. The book thus challenges assumptions about the causal relations between genes, capacities, social communication and innovation: the biological capacities are taken to evolve incrementally on the basis of cognitive plasticity, in a process that recruits previous adaptations and fine-tunes them to serve novel communicative ends. Topics include the ability brought about by language to tell lies, that must have confronted our ancestors with new problems of public trust; the dynamics of social-cognitive co-evolution; the role of gesture and mimesis in linguistic communication; studies of how monkeys and apes express their feelings or thoughts; play, laughter, dance, song, ritual and other social displays among extant hunter-gatherers; the social nature of language acquisition and innovation; normativity and the emergence of linguistic norms; the interaction of language and emotions; and novel perspectives on the time-frame for language evolution. The contributors are leading international scholars from linguistics, anthropology, palaeontology, primatology, psychology, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, archaeology, and cognitive science.

    It explains why the brain is put together as it is by describing basic functions and key aspects of its evolution and development. This approach makes the structure of the brain and spinal cord more comprehensible as well as more interesting and memorable. The book offers a detailed outline of the neuroanatomy of vertebrates, especially mammals, that equips students for further explorations of the field.Gaining familiarity with neuroanatomy requires multiple exposures to the material with many incremental additions and reviews. Thus the early chapters of this book tell the story of the brain's origins in a first run-through of the entire system; this is followed by other such surveys in succeeding chapters, each from a different angle. The book proceeds from basic aspects of nerve cells and their physiology to the evolutionary beginnings of the nervous system to differentiation and development, motor and sensory systems, and the structure and function of the main parts of the brain. Along the way, it makes enlightening connections to evolutionary history and individual development. Brain Structure and Its Origins can be used for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate classes in neuroscience, biology, psychology, and related fields, or as a reference for researchers and others who want to know more about the brain.

    This groundbreaking book provides the first mechanistically based theory of what homology is and how it arises in evolution.G�nter Wagner, one of the preeminent researchers in the field, argues that homology, or character identity, can be explained through the historical continuity of character identity networks--that is, the gene regulatory networks that enable differential gene expression. He shows how character identity is independent of the form and function of the character itself because the same network can activate different effector genes and thus control the development of different shapes, sizes, and qualities of the character. Demonstrating how this theoretical model can provide a foundation for understanding the evolutionary origin of novel characters, Wagner applies it to the origin and evolution of specific systems, such as cell types; skin, hair, and feathers; limbs and digits; and flowers.The first major synthesis of homology to be published in decades, Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation reveals how a mechanistically based theory can serve as a unifying concept for any branch of science concerned with the structure and development of organisms, and how it can help explain major transitions in evolution and broad patterns of biological diversity.

    Presented here are 48 classic papers, selected and introduced by two of the world’s most distinguished evolutionary biologists, Francisco J. Ayala and John C. Avise. The volume reveals, in chronological order, 150 years of evolutionary biology, from the field’s origins to recent discoveries and reinterpretations based on new theory and evidence.A perfect book for seminar courses in biology, zoology, botany, ecology or evolution, this comprehensive tour of landmark publications traces scholarly thought from the foggy nineteenth-century birth of evolutionary biology to the mapping of the human genome. Each selection is preceded by a short essay that explains its significance.The papers represent hallmark publication by seminal thinkers in the field such as Charlesworth, Dobzhansky, Ehrlich and Raven, Gould and Lewontin, Hamilton, Hardy, Hillis, Margulis, Maynard Smith, Mayr, MacArthur and Wilson, McClintock, Simpson, Trivers, Watson and Crick, West-Eberhard, and Wright. Subjects include natural selection, adaptation, and complex design, as well as mutation, chromosome speciation, and pseudogenes.In short, Essential Readings in Evolutionary Biology provides a captivating history of the foundation and growth of biology’s central discipline.

    I have a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and work as a postdoctorate fellow at the University of Reading by day, but I also love writing children's books (see my last project, Little Changes). For Great Adaptations, I'm creating ten illustrated short stories in rhyme that explain the evolutionary advantages of some of the natural world's unusual traits in child-friendly terms. Each story is written in close collaboration with esteemed and up-and-coming scientists who have conducted extensive research on the topic at hand, and illustrated by an artist who shares an interest in the topic. For readers who want to learn more on the subject, the scientists are also providing a short commentary. We’re very proud that our team of scientists and science-enthusiasts is almost half women!https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...

    In How and Why Species Multiply, they offered a complete evolutionary history of Darwin's finches since their origin almost three million years ago. Now, in their richly illustrated new book, 40 Years of Evolution, the authors turn their attention to events taking place on a contemporary scale. By continuously tracking finch populations over a period of four decades, they uncover the causes and consequences of significant events leading to evolutionary changes in species.The authors used a vast and unparalleled range of ecological, behavioral, and genetic data--including song recordings, DNA analyses, and feeding and breeding behavior--to measure changes in finch populations on the small island of Daphne Major in the Gal�pagos archipelago. They find that natural selection happens repeatedly, that finches hybridize and exchange genes rarely, and that they compete for scarce food in times of drought, with the remarkable result that the finch populations today differ significantly in average beak size and shape from those of forty years ago. The authors' most spectacular discovery is the initiation and establishment of a new lineage that now behaves as a new species, differing from others in size, song, and other characteristics. The authors emphasize the immeasurable value of continuous long-term studies of natural populations and of critical opportunities for detecting and understanding rare but significant events.By following the fates of finches for several generations, 40 Years of Evolution offers unparalleled insights into ecological and evolutionary changes in natural environments.

    In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwin’s evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I. Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck.                         These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwin’s acknowledgement that natural selection was �the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms,” both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly �Darwinian.” By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

    culture, and countless scholarly collections have been devoted to the science of evolution, few have addressed the specific details of Darwin’s theories as a cultural force affecting U.S. writers. America’s Darwin fills this gap and features a range of critical approaches that examine U.S. textual responses to Darwin’s works.The scholars in this collection represent a range of disciplines—literature, history of science, women’s studies, geology, biology, entomology, and anthropology. All pay close attention to the specific forms that Darwinian evolution took in the United States, engaging not only with Darwin’s most famous works, such as On the Origin of Species, but also with less familiar works, such as The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.Each contributor considers distinctive social, cultural, and intellectual conditions that affected the reception and dissemination of evolutionary thought, from before the publication of On the Origin of Species to the early years of the twenty-first century. These essays engage with the specific details and language of a wide selection of Darwin’s texts, treating his writings as primary sources essential to comprehending the impact of Darwinian language on American writers and thinkers. This careful engagement with the texts of evolution enables us to see the broad points of its acceptance and adoption in the American scene; this approach also highlights the ways in which writers, reformers, and others reconfigured Darwinian language to suit their individual purposes.America’s Darwin demonstrates the many ways in which writers and others fit themselves to a narrative of evolution whose dominant motifs are contingency and uncertainty. Collectively, the authors make the compelling case that the interpretation of evolutionary theory in the U.S. has always shifted in relation to prevailing cultural anxieties.