Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity
Год издания: 2020
Автор: Brian Hare, Vanessa Woods
Жанр или тематика: Evolutionary psychology. Social evolution. Human evolution. Friendship. Empathy
Издательство: Random House
ISBN: 9780399590672
Язык: English
Формат: EPUB
Качество: Издательский макет или текст (eBook)
Интерактивное оглавление: Да
Количество страниц: 274 pages
Описание: A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness. For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened?
Since Charles Darwin wrote about “evolutionary fitness,” the idea of fitness has been confused with physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. In fact, what made us evolutionarily fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, a virtuosic ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. Advancing what they call the “self-domestication theory,” Brian Hare, professor in the department of evolutionary anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University and his wife, Vanessa Woods, a research scientist and award-winning journalist, shed light on the mysterious leap in human cognition that allowed Homo sapiens to thrive.
But this gift for friendliness came at a cost. Just as a mother bear is most dangerous around her cubs, we are at our most dangerous when someone we love is threatened by an “outsider.” The threatening outsider is demoted to sub-human, fair game for our worst instincts. Hare’s groundbreaking research, developed in close coordination with Richard Wrangham and Michael Tomasello, giants in the field of cognitive evolution, reveals that the same traits that make us the most tolerant species on the planet also make us the cruelest.
Survival of the Friendliest offers us a new way to look at our cultural as well as cognitive evolution and sends a clear message: In order to survive and even to flourish, we need to expand our definition of who belongs.
“Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring – and a riveting read. Hare and Woods have written the perfect book for our time.” – Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge
The age restriction is 16+
Оглавление
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter 1: Thinking About Thinking
Chapter 2: The Power of Friendliness
Chapter 3: Our Long-Lost Cousins
Chapter 4: Domesticated Minds
Chapter 5: Forever Young
Chapter 6: Not Quite Human
Chapter 7: The Uncanny Valley
Chapter 8: The Highest Freedom
Chapter 9: Circle of Friends
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Notes
Image Credits
By Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods
About the Authors
