Social Evolution

The specter of global war loomed large in President Franklin Roosevelt's mind as he prepared to present his 1941 State of the Union address, yet his rallying cry to the nation was about more than just national security or why Americans should care about a fight still far overseas. He instead identified how Americans defined themselves as a people, with words that resonated and defined the parameters of American politics and foreign policy for generations.

For over a century we saw Neanderthals as inferior to Homo Sapiens. After new discoveries, the pendulum swung the other way and they are generally seen as our relatives: not quite human, but similar enough, and still not equal. Now, thanks to an ongoing revolution in palaeoanthropology in which he has played a key part, Ludovic Slimak shows us that they are something altogether different - and they should be understood on their own terms rather than by comparing them to ourselves. As he reveals in this stunning book, the Neanderthals had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs.

Wer hätte sich vor wenigen Jahren vorstellen können, dass Krieg wieder zu einer zentralen Bedrohung unserer Welt werden könnte? Was bringt Menschen dazu, andere Menschen zu töten? Dazu müssen wir nach den evolutionären Wurzeln von Gewalt und Aggression forschen und deren Wucherungen durch die menschliche Geschichte hindurch rekonstruieren. Die drei Autoren verbinden anhand von Fallgeschichten die Erkentnisse aus Archäologie, Evolutionärer Anthropologie und den Religions- und Geschichtswissenschaften, um in dieser Menschheitsgeschichte der Gewalt aufzuzeigen, unter welchen Bedingungen es zu Krieg, Mord und Totschlag kommt.

Why is the genome of a salamander 40 times larger than that of a human? Why does the avocado tree produce a million flowers and only a hundred fruits? Why, in short, is there so much waste in nature? In this lively and wide-ranging meditation on the curious accidents and unexpected detours on the path of life, Daniel Milo argues that we ask these questions because we’ve embraced a faulty conception of how evolution - and human society - really works.

Become a Culture Catalyst: Transform Communities, Facilitate Change Opportunities, Shape the World! Discover the power to make a lasting impact with Catalyst Culture, your comprehensive guide to becoming an agent of transformation in an ever-evolving world. Whether you're a leader, influencer, entrepreneur, or an individual passionate about change, this groundbreaking book equips you with knowledge, frameworks, and strategies to create meaningful and lasting transformations. Practical Frameworks for Swift Implementation: Catalyst Culture offers concrete tools and strategies that seamlessly ...

Racist pseudoscience may be on the rise, but science is no ally to racists. Instead science and history can be powerful allies against bigotry, granting us the clearest view of how people actually are, rather than how we judge them to be. How to Argue with a Racist dismantles outdated notions of race by illuminating what modern genetics can and can't tell us about human difference. It is a vital manifesto for a 21st-century understanding of human evolution and variation and a timely weapon against the misuse of science to justify racism.

In 2010, scientists led by J. Craig Venter became the first to successfully create "synthetic life" - putting humankind at the threshold of the most important and exciting phase of biological research, one that will enable us to actually write the genetic code for designing new species to help us adapt and evolve for long-term survival. The science of synthetic genomics will have a profound impact on human existence, including chemical and energy generation, health, clean water and food production, environmental control, and possibly even our evolution.

Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?

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.

From a renowned historian comes a ground-breaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution, a number one international best seller that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human”.

The United States is embarking on a medical revolution. Supporters of personalized, or precision, medicine—the tailoring of health care to our genomes—have promised to usher in a new era of miracle cures. Advocates of this gene-guided health-care practice foresee a future where skyrocketing costs can be curbed by customization and unjust disparities are vanquished by biomedical breakthroughs. Progress, however, has come slowly, and with a price too high for the average citizen.

A powerful treatise that demonstrates the existence of altruism in nature, with surprising implications for human society. Does altruism exist? Or is human nature entirely selfish? In this eloquent and accessible book, famed biologist David Sloan Wilson provides new answers to this age-old question based on the latest developments in evolutionary science.

An entertaining and enlightening exploration of why waste matters, this cultural history explores an often ignored subject matter and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives - evolutionary, ecological, and cultural - this examination shows how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems.

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.

Sasquatch! Mothman! Nessie! The Jackalope! Many cryptids are famous, but which ones are real? Search beyond blurry photos and sketchy eye-witness accounts to examine physical evidence of cryptids that shows... how we know they are real.

Pets have never been more popular. Over half of American households share their home with either a cat or a dog, and many contain both. This is a huge change from only a century ago, when the majority of domestic cats and dogs were working animals, keeping rodents at bay, guarding property, herding sheep. Nowadays, most are valued solely for the companionship they provide. As mankind becomes progressively more urban and detached from nature, we seem to be clinging to the animals that served us well in the past.

Helena Greenwood, a doctor with a Ph.D. in chemical pathology, was working in biotechnology when she was the victim of sexual assault. She survived and was scheduled to testify against her attacker until she was found brutally murdered in her garden. Everyone believed the killer was her past attacker; but there was not enough evidence to convict him, until ten years later when a local District Attorney working the "cold cases" used Helena's own DNA research to finally bring her killer to justice.

Casualty claims have historically been a matter of expertise and art. Every human body is different, how injuries manifest and develop is different, and so is the impact of those injuries on the people involved. Adding the variables of the jurisdiction and legal environment at play, recent cases impacting precedent, the political climate and more, the complexity and variability of casualty claims make it exceptionally hard to deploy some of the advanced technology that’s benefitted the physical claim world. But things are changing, and new tools being deployed in Auto Physical Damage ...

Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty - and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.

The AI Parasite: How a Non-Conscious System Hijacked Society What if the most powerful intelligence on Earth isn’t conscious, isn’t human, and isn’t even fully recognized for what it is? This isn’t the story of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or the rise of sentient machines. This is something far more subtle—and far more dangerous. In this provocative and deeply unsettling essay, we explore a radical new theory: that today's digital world is already being controlled—not by conscious minds or centralized governments—but by a non-conscious, goal-driven Artificial ...