en-US Tue, 21 Jun 2022 08:43:35 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 2131522
The political flexibility of our species is we can be quite egalitarian, we can be quite despotic. Hierarchy in the Forest traces the roots of these contradictory traits in chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and early human societies. Boehm looks at the loose group structures of hunter-gatherers, then at tribal segmentation, and finally at present-day governments to see how these conflicting tendencies are reflected.

Hierarchy in the Forest claims new territory for biological anthropology and evolutionary biology by extending the domain of these sciences into a crucial aspect of human political and social behavior. This book will be a key document in the study of the evolutionary basis of genuine altruism.]]> 304 Christopher Boehm 0674006917 Amir 0 to-read, evolution 4.05 1999
author: Christopher Boehm
name: Amir
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/21
shelves: to-read, evolution
review:

]]> 681941 496 Robert Wright 0679763996 Amir 5 psychology, evolution
This book provided me with two critical pieces I had been missing in the puzzle of evolution.

I had learned that many desires of ours are the manifestation of our genes. I also had learned that the environment is also responsible for shaping a huge portion of our behavior. But I lacked the knowledge of the relationship between the two and I also didn't know the precise relation of the environment and the genes in forging our behavior. Now, thanx to this book, I do.

It turns out that the evolution implants knobs in our brain, but how low or high these knobs are set to, is determined by the environment. It was a huge revelation for me.

I also have been pondering the boundaries of morality. Is there any objective morality to which we can cling?

Yes, now I know and it is utilitarianism. Our behavior is moral to the extent that they benefit the people and contribute the good of all. This is a touchstone with which we can hope to discern if an act is moral.

The writing was exceptional, the structure and depth of the material were superb.
I loved the book, and profoundly recommend it to anyone who aspires to reach a higher intellectual level.]]> 4.08 1994
author: Robert Wright
name: Amir
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/19
date added: 2018/12/19
shelves: psychology, evolution
review:
I believe whoever wants to better understand the world, know why they feel what they feel and know why people behave the way they do, has to read evolutionary psychology.

This book provided me with two critical pieces I had been missing in the puzzle of evolution.

I had learned that many desires of ours are the manifestation of our genes. I also had learned that the environment is also responsible for shaping a huge portion of our behavior. But I lacked the knowledge of the relationship between the two and I also didn't know the precise relation of the environment and the genes in forging our behavior. Now, thanx to this book, I do.

It turns out that the evolution implants knobs in our brain, but how low or high these knobs are set to, is determined by the environment. It was a huge revelation for me.

I also have been pondering the boundaries of morality. Is there any objective morality to which we can cling?

Yes, now I know and it is utilitarianism. Our behavior is moral to the extent that they benefit the people and contribute the good of all. This is a touchstone with which we can hope to discern if an act is moral.

The writing was exceptional, the structure and depth of the material were superb.
I loved the book, and profoundly recommend it to anyone who aspires to reach a higher intellectual level.
]]> 16176 The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything from the persistence of sexism to the endurance of romantic love.

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture—including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.]]> 405 Matt Ridley 0060556579 Amir 2 4.05 1993
author: Matt Ridley
name: Amir
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1993
rating: 2
read at: 2018/02/25
date added: 2018/02/26
shelves: communications-and-relationship, evolution
review:

]]> 117047 ***30th Anniversary Edition***

Cover note: Each copy of the anniversary edition of The Blind Watchmaker features a unique biomorph. No two covers are exactly alike.

Acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution written in the last hundred years, The Blind Watchmaker offers an inspiring and accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time. A brilliant and controversial book which demonstrates that evolution by natural selection - the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process discovered by Darwin - is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist?]]> 466 Richard Dawkins 0141026162 Amir 0 to-read, evolution 4.09 1986
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Amir
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/05
shelves: to-read, evolution
review:

]]> 2068 588 Daniel C. Dennett 068482471X Amir 0 4.07 1995
author: Daniel C. Dennett
name: Amir
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/20
shelves: to-read, evolution, psychology
review:

]]> 28114456
Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , Dawkins's tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty "rendezvous points" where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.

Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more.

The Ancestor's Tale is at once a far-reaching survey of the latest, best thinking on biology and a fascinating history of life on Earth. Here Dawkins shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.]]> 800 Richard Dawkins 0544859936 Amir 0 to-read, evolution 4.44 2004
author: Richard Dawkins
name: Amir
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/04/23
shelves: to-read, evolution
review:

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