Evolutionary Science

The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.

For all that science knows about the living world, notes David P. Barash, there are even more things we don't know, genuine evolutionary mysteries that perplex the best minds in biology. Paradoxically, many of these mysteries are very close to home, involving some of the most personal aspects of being human. Homo Mysterious examines a number of these evolutionary mysteries, exploring things we don't yet know about ourselves, laying out the best current hypotheses, and pointing toward insights that scientists are just beginning to glimpse.

Roughgarden rejects both junk science based on spurious metaphors and junk religion based on spurious theology. In their place, she offers an inspiring accommodation between thoughtful science and compassionate religion.

Spite seems utterly useless. You don't gain anything by hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else. So why hasn't evolution weeded out all the spiteful people? As psychologist Simon McCarthy-Jones argues, spite seems pointless because we're looking at it wrong. Spite isn't just what we feel when a car cuts us off or when a partner cheats. It's what we feel when we want to punish a bad act simply because it was bad. Spite is our fairness instinct, an innate resistance to exploitation, and it is one of the building blocks of human civilization.

In this intriguing book, evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon draws on the explosion of discoveries in recent years to examine the future evolution of our species. Combining knowledge of our past with current trends, Solomon offers convincing evidence that evolutionary forces still affect us today. But how will modernization - including longer lifespans, changing diets, global travel, and widespread use of medicine and contraceptives - affect our evolutionary future?

Violation of biological command has been the failure of social man. Vertebrates though we may be, we have ignored the law of equal opportunity since civilization's earliest hours. Sexually reproducing beings though we are, we pretend today that the law of inequality does not exist. And enlightened though we may be, while we pursue the unattainable we make impossible the realizable.

We are all familiar with the "march of progress," the representation of evolution that depicts a series of apelike creatures becoming progressively taller and more erect before finally reaching the upright human form. Its emphasis on linear progress has had a decisive impact on public understanding of evolution, yet the image contradicts modern scientific conceptions of evolution as complex and branching.

How different might the history of our species have been had our hunter-gatherer forebears failed to migrate out of Africa in time to survive 70,000 years ago when threatened by extinction due to climate change brought on by the last ice age? Simply put, we would not exist. Now, similarly threatened, we too must act quickly if we hope to survive. Yet despite all the signs of a potential greenhouse mass extinction, again due to climate change, this threat is still being ignored.

Peter F. Hamilton’s startling perspectives on tomorrow’s technological and cultural trends span vast tracts of space and time, his stories are as compelling as they are epic in scope, and yet they are always grounded in characters – human, alien and other – who, for all their strangeness, still touch our hearts and fire our imaginations.

It is natural for us to fear artificial intelligence. But does Siri really want to kill us? Perhaps we are falling into the trap of projecting human traits onto the machines we might build. In Evolutionary Intelligence, Neuman offers a surprisingly positive vision in which computational intelligence compensates for the well-recognized limits of human judgment, improves decision making, and actually increases our agency. Neuman takes the listener on an exciting, fast-paced ride, all the while making a convincing case about a revolution in computationally augmented human intelligence.

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination and the creation of a world teetering towards climate catastrophe. What if human exceptionalism is more of a curse than a blessing?

Why cooperate? This may be the most important scientific question we have ever, and will ever, face. The science of cooperation tells us not only how we got here, but also where we might end up. Cooperation explains how strands of DNA gave rise to modern-day nation states. It defines our extraordinary ecological success, as well as many of the most surprising features of what make us human: not only why we live in families, why we have grandmothers and why women experience the menopause, but also why we become paranoid and jealous, and why we cheat.

In this book, evolutionary psychologist Dennis Krebs explains how virtuous behaviors such as altruism, justice, honesty, loyalty, self-control, purity, and respect for authority, have evolved in humans and other species. He argues that the key to solving puzzles of morality—such as what it is, how we acquire moral traits, why we sometimes behave badly, and how we make moral decisions—lies in figuring out what adaptive functions moral traits served in early human environments and how they are influenced by social learning, culture, and strategic social interactions in the modern world.

Don't miss the final part of this breathtaking trilogy from Teri Terry, multi-award-winning author of the Slated trilogy. Shay has followed Xander and joined his mysterious scientific cult at their remote Scottish compound. She's desperately searching for Callie, who went missing before the start of the epidemic that kills 95% of cases, and leaves a tiny number of survivors with astonishing new powers. Can Shay uncover the truth about the origins of the epidemic, find Callie, and perhaps even rekindle her relationship with Kai?

Discover the Story That Connects Us All Step into the breathtaking narrative of Mitochondrial Eve, the mother of humanity. From the cradle of life in Africa to the farthest corners of the globe, her DNA links every person on Earth. This is not just science—it’s the most extraordinary story ever told. Experience Eve’s journey through an exhilarating exploration of human origins, resilience, and unity. Unearth how her legacy shaped societies, overcame unimaginable odds, and connects people from every nation, race, and culture. This is a story that redefines what it means to belong. The ...

Depuis l'apparition d'homo sapiens et la révolution cognitive il y a 50 000 ans, les capacités de notre espèce à comprendre et modifier son environnement paraissent sans limites. Un seul mystère reste inviolé : celui de la nature humaine et de sa civilisation. Ce que nous sommes vraiment, pourquoi notre espèce fait ce qu'elle fait, défie toute explication rationnelle.

A prequel to the nationally best-selling Jeff Resnick Mysteries, this collection of short stories chronicles Jeff's (and his brother, Richard Albert's) backstory. What forces molded these men into the people they are today? Find out in these 11 thought-provoking tales that span from Jeff and Richard's first meeting until two years before the first book in the series, Murder on the Mind. These stories are not mysteries.

Marooned at the edge of Terran space, engineer Hemlocke Shaw must join forces with his sworn enemy and combat his greatest fears in an effort to save his friends, and the countless other souls on the isolated Outpost 21. And corporate Peacekeeper Paige Angstrom, teenage outcast Volara, and bounty hunter Emrald Re hurtle towards a secret research facility hidden in the volcanic wilds. As they fight to unmask the nefarious forces behind a ring of disappearances and gene-splicing experiments, it becomes clear that their failure will mean the end of humanity itself.

As artificial intelligence transforms how we live, work, and learn, this book guides educators on navigating the AI revolution thoughtfully and ethically. It explores how generative AI tools are disrupting classrooms while also unlocking new opportunities to enhance teaching and learning. Through a blend of storytelling, practical strategies, and over 50 expert interviews, the book lays the groundwork on AI's capabilities, limitations, and potential biases.

Brian and Deborah Charlesworth provide a clear and concise summary of the process of evolution by natural selection, and how natural selection gives rise to adaptations and eventually, over many generations, to new species. They introduce the central concepts of the field of evolutionary biology, as they have developed since Darwin and Wallace on the subject, over 140 years ago, and discuss some of the remaining questions regarding processes.