Social Evolution

Cooperation is the means by which life arose in the first place. It’s how we progressed through scale and complexity, from free-floating strands of genetic material, to nation states. But given what we know about the mechanisms of evolution, cooperation is also something of a puzzle. How does cooperation begin, when on a Darwinian level, all that the genes in your body care about is being passed on to the next generation? A biologist by training, Raihani looks at where and how collaborative behavior emerges throughout the animal kingdom, and what problems it solves.

Drawing on startling new evidence from the mapping of the genome, an explosive new account of the genetic basis of race and its role in the human story. Human evolution, the consensus view insists, ended in prehistory. Inconveniently, as Nicholas Wade argues in A Troublesome Inheritance, the consensus view cannot be right. And in fact, we know that populations have changed in the past few thousand years - to be lactose tolerant, for example, and to survive at high altitudes.

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 source among our earliest human ancestors, and explains many of the most intriguing questions that genome scientists are currently working to answer.

The Echo of Ancient Civilizations, a Book by Bo Carson, is an indispensable guide for anyone seeking to walk in the path of the ancient world. With a masterful combination of scholarship and readability, retrace the rise and fall of civilizations from the earliest times to the Roman Empire. This book is a must-read for students of history, anthropology, and archaeology, as well as anyone with a passion for the rich tapestry of human culture. Whether you're looking to deepen your knowledge or explore a new area of study, "The Echo of Ancient Civilizations" is a great read. Dive into the ...

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

This book uses evolutionary psychology as a lens to explain religious violence and oppression. The author, a clinical psychologist, examines religious scriptures, rituals, and canon law, highlighting the many ways in which our evolutionary legacy has shaped the development of religion and continues to profoundly influence its expression.

Between what can be learned from evolutionary psychology and cognitive science a picture emerges. In Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life, social psychologist Douglas Kenrick fuses these two fields to create a coherent story of human nature. In his analysis, many ingrained, apparently irrational behaviors—one-night stands, prejudice, conspicuous consumption, even art and religious devotion—are quite explicable and (when desired) avoidable.

Stepping effortlessly from myth to cutting-edge science, Mutants gives a brilliant narrative account of our genetic code and the captivating people whose bodies have revealed it - a French convent girl who found herself changing sex at puberty; children who, echoing Homer's Cyclops, are born with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads; a village of long-lived Croatian dwarves; one family, whose bodies were entirely covered with hair, was kept at the Burmese royal court for four generations and gave Darwin one of his keenest insights into heredity.

From leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist Jamie Metzl comes a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways genetic engineering is shaking the core foundations of our lives-sex, war, love, and death. At the dawn of the genetics revolution, our DNA is becoming as readable, writable, and hackable as our information technology. But as humanity starts retooling our own genetic code, the choices we make today will be the difference between realizing breathtaking advances in human well-being and descending into a dangerous and potentially deadly genetic arms race.

Buckle up, my friends, because we're about to embark on a wild ride through the ages—a journey to uncover the naked truth about nudity. I'm Kristin, your witty and somewhat irreverent guide through the ages, ready to peel back the layers (figuratively speaking, of course) on how humanity's relationship with nudity has evolved over time. From cavemen boldly flaunting their birthday suits to Renaissance artists trying to outdo each other with anatomical accuracy, the story of nudity is as old as, well, the first time someone decided clothes were optional. We're not just talking about ...

In Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, argues that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism - it's in our biology.

Throughout history, even as daily life has exhibited calm and tolerance, war has never been far away, and even within societies, violence can be a threat. The Goodness Paradox gives a new and powerful argument for how and why this uncanny combination of peacefulness and violence crystallized after our ancestors acquired language in Africa a quarter of a million years ago.

In this startling study of human emotion, Dacher Keltner investigates an unanswered question of human evolution: If humans are hardwired to lead lives that are "nasty, brutish, and short," why have we evolved with positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, and compassion that promote ethical action and cooperative societies? Born to Be Good takes us on a journey through scientific discovery, personal narrative, and Eastern philosophy.

Social media can be one of the most versatile tools in an entrepreneur’s toolbox, but are you using it to its full potential? With the help of celebrity agent, businessman, international best-selling author, speaker, and social media marketing expert Tony Giordano, you can use multiple social media websites to research new clients, prospect, build relationships, generate leads, and create brand awareness. Giordano shares tips and techniques for website SEO, Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, WhatsApp, WeChat, Snapchat, and much more. In The Social Agent 2....

Laurence Gonzales turns his talent for gripping narrative, knowledge of the way our minds and bodies work, and bottomless curiosity about the world to the topic of how we can best use the lessons of our evolutionary history to overcome the hazards of everyday life. He finds that natural laws profoundly affect our actions, and he reveals the hidden causes and costs of our behavior, whether as individuals or as a species whose decisions may be leading to darker times.

A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE EVOLUTION --- This book provides an in-depth exploration of the processes that have shaped human language over millennia, integrating linguistic, archaeological, cognitive, and sociocultural evidence to illuminate the evolution of languages. Anchoring its analysis in historical linguistics, the book goes into the profound effects of migration, educational systems, trade, and technological innovations on language transformation. The bookunfolds with an examination of migration's necessary place in shaping linguistic territory, from the spread of Indo-...

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.

In the best-selling and critically acclaimed Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance, Phillip Johnson took on the academic elites and exposed the misleading claims of evolutionary naturalism. Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds provides a new and powerful treatment of these issues for high-school students, parents, teachers, pastors, youth advisers, and ordinary listeners. Johnson aims not just to defeat a bad theory, but to defeat it in the right way - by opening minds to the truth.

We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we?