He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: the Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits), the Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and the Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders have engaged in desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are now challenging them.Pinker injects calm and rationality into these debates by showing that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about a rich human nature. He disarms even the most menacing threats with clear thinking, common sense, and pertinent facts from science and history.Despite its popularity among intellectuals during much of the twentieth century, he argues, the doctrine of the Blank Slate may have done more harm than good. It denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.Pinker shows that an acknowledgement of human nature that is grounded in science and common sense, far from being dangerous, can complement insights about the human condition made by millennia of artists and philosophers. All this is done in the style that earned his previous books many prizes and worldwide acclaim: wit, lucidity, and insight into matters great and small.

    He reveals 20-million-year-old quartzite tools discovered in the remains of extinct fauna in Argentina and other evidence of ancient pre-human cultures from which we are not descended. He traces the genesis of modern human civilization to Indonesia and the Central Pacific 75,000 years ago, launched by a catastrophic volcanic eruption that abruptly reduced humanity from two million to a few thousand individuals worldwide.Further investigating the evolutionary branches of humanity, he explores the mounting biological evidence supporting the aquatic ape theory--that our ancestors spent one or more evolutionary phases in water--and shows how these aquatic phases of humanity fall neatly into place within his revised timeline of ancient history. Examining the profound similarities of megaliths around the world, including Nabta Playa, Gobekli Tepe, Stonehenge, New Hampshire’s Mystery Hill, and the Japanese Oyu circles, the author explains how these precisely placed monuments of quartz were built specifically to produce altered states of consciousness, revealing the spiritual and technological sophistication of their Neolithic builders--a transoceanic civilization fractured by the cataclysmic effects of comets.Tying in his extensive research into Atlantis and Lemuria, Joseph provides a 20-million-year timeline of the rise and fall of ancient civilizations, both human and pre-human, the evolutionary stages of humanity, and the catastrophes and resulting climate changes that triggered them all--events that our relatively young civilization may soon experience.

    The Lucifer Priciple is a revolutionary work that explores the intricate relationships among genetics, human behavior, and culture to put forth the thesis that “evil” is a by-product of nature’s strategies for creation and that it is woven into our most basic biological fabric.

    But in recent decades, these claims have eroded, or even been disproven outright, by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long.People often assume a cognitive ladder, from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different forms that are often incomparable to ours? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you’re less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of a echolocating bat? De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.

    For many the topic was seen as being fact-rich but understanding-poor, smelly, and so far removed from the real world of events and pleasures that there seemed little point, except for the most introverted, in coming to terms with its grubby concepts, spells, recipes, and rules. Peter Atkins wants to change all that. In What is Chemistry? he encourages us to look at chemistry anew, through a chemist's eyes, to understand its central concepts and to see how it contributes not only towards our material comfort, but also to human culture. He shows how chemistry provides the infrastructure of our world, through the chemical industry, the fuels of heating, power generation, and transport, as well as the fabrics of our clothing and furnishings. By considering the remarkable achievements that chemistry has made, and examining its place between both physics and biology, Atkins presents a fascinating, clear, and rigorous exploration of the world of chemistry -- its structure, core concepts, and contributions.

    The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the Copernican Revolution, which bodychecked the Earth as the pivot point of creation and joined us with the rest of the cosmos as one planet among many orbiting the Sun. Three centuries later came the second great scientific revolution: the Darwinian Revolution. It removed us from a distinct, divine biological status to place us wholly in the ebb and flow of all terrestrial life. This book describes how we’re in the midst of a third great scientific revolution, five centuries in the making: the Stardust Revolution. It is the merging of the once-disparate realms of astronomy and evolutionary biology, and of the Copernican and Darwinian Revolutions, placing life in a cosmic context. This book takes readers on a grand journey that begins on the summit of California’s Mount Wilson, where astronomers first realized that the universe is both expanding and evolving, to a radio telescope used to identify how organic molecules—the building blocks of life—are made by stars. It’s an epic story told through a scientific cast that includes some of the twentieth century’s greatest minds—including Nobel laureate Charles Townes, who discovered cosmic water—as well as the most ambitious scientific explorers of the twenty-first century, those racing to find another living planet. Today, an entirely new breed of scientists—astrobiologists and astrochemists—are taking the study of life into the space age. Astrobiologists study the origins, evolution, and distribution of life, not just on Earth, but in the universe. Stardust science is filling in the missing links in our evolutionary story, ones that extend our family tree back to the stars.

    You will be astonished to learn about some of the events that have occurred! Here is a Sneak Peek of What you will Learn: - Ancient History - Asian History - European and Russian History - American History - Australian History - World Wars I & II, and the Vietnam War - And much, much, more Here is what other readers say about this book: "This book is packed with really important information about the world's history." "I was surprised how much I learned from this. I really like how everything is laid out, it makes it very easy to follow. I especially like the section on Native Americans" "I couldn't put this book down, and not because I'm a nerdy avid reader (I am) but because it's filled with so much about our world history without the facts jumping all over the place like some history books I've read." "I am highly impressed by the content of this book and I would recommend this to all my colleagues as well" Subjects include: Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, The Roman Empire, Constantine and Christianity, India, Ancient Korea, Chinese Dynasties, Napoleonic Europe, Foundation of USA, The 1812 War, Australia and Wars, World War I, World War II, The Ottoman Empire, Greece and North Africa, The Diem Regime, Pearl Harbor and much more! All Continents As Known Today Are Covered: North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Take action and get this book now!

    Along the way, he explains exactly how Muslim conquest gave Spain its paella, how the Earth's collision with another young planet created the moon, how dragonflies the size of seagulls emerged out of the prehistoric waters, and how the Big Bang can be detected in your television. Accessible and endlessly entertaining, this massive book draws on disciplines as wide-ranging as astrophysics and anthropology and will appeal to experts, amateur enthusiasts and the simply curious alike. Completed by 250 colourful photographs, maps, historic paintings, engravings and specially commissioned illustrations, What on Earth Happened? takes an entertaining and informed sideways look at the last 13.7 billion years in the life of our universe. Do you know What on Earth Happened?

     Three and a half billion years ago, Mars resembled earth. It was warm and wet and could have supported primitive organisms. If life once existed on Mars, might it have originated there and traveled to earth inside meteorites blasted into space by cosmic impacts? Davies builds on recent scientific discoveries and theories to address larger questions of existence: What, exactly, is life? Is it the inevitable by-product of physical laws, as many scientists maintain, or an almost miraculous accident? Are we alone in the universe, or will life emerge on all earthlike planets? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, is it preordained to evolve toward greater complexity and intelligence? Through his search for answers to these questions, Davies explores the ultimate mystery of mankind's existence -- who we are and what our place might be in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.

    Long-established techniques are carefully explained as well as exciting new methods as the authors describe the ways in which archaeologists seek to explain and interpret the remote past of humankind

    In The Horse, the journalist and equestrienne Wendy Williams brings that story brilliantly to life.Williams chronicles the 56-million-year journey of horses as she visits with horse experts around the world, revealing what our biological affinities and differences can tell us about the bond between horses and humans, and what our noble companion may think and feel. Indeed, recent scientific breakthroughs regarding the social and cognitive capacities of the horse and its ability to adapt to changing ecosystems indicate that this animal is a major evolutionary triumph.Williams charts the course that leads to our modern Equus-from the protohorse to the Dutch warmbloods, thoroughbreds, and miniature horses of the twenty-first century. She observes magnificent ancient cave art that signals a deep respect and admiration for horses well before they were domesticated, visits the mountains of Wyoming with an expert in equine behavior to understand the dynamics of free-roaming mustangs, witnesses the fluid gracefulness of the famous Lipizzaners of Vienna, contemplates what life is like for the sure-footed, mustachioed Garrano horses who thrive on the rugged terrain of Galicia, celebrates the Takhi horses of Mongolia, and more. She blends profound scientific insights with remarkable stories to create a unique biography of the horse as a sentient being with a fascinating past and a finely nuanced mind.The Horse is a revelatory account of the animal who has been at our side through the ages, carrying us into battle and traveling with us across the plains. Enriched by Wendy Williams's own experience with horses, The Horse is a masterful work of narrative nonfiction that pays tribute to this champion of the natural world.

    In this virtuosic work of popular science, neuroscientist and best-selling author Dean Buonomano investigates the intricate relationship between the brain and time: What is time? Why does time seem to speed up or slow down? Is our sense that time flows an illusion? Buonomano presents his own influential theory of how the brain tells time, and he illuminates such concepts as free will, consciousness, spacetime, and relativity from the perspective of a neuroscientist. Drawing on physics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Your Brain Is a Time Machine reveals that the brain’s ultimate purpose may be to predict the future, and thus that your brain is a time machine.

    Focusing on four specific examples — corn, silkworms, domestic cats, and apples — she traces the histories of species that have been fundamentally altered over the centuries by the whims and needs of people.

    

    How did the replication bomb we call ”life” begin and where in the world, or rather, in the universe, is it heading? Writing with characteristic wit and an ability to clarify complex phenomena (the New York Times described his style as ”the sort of science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius”), Richard Dawkins confronts this ancient mystery.