Social Evolution

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.

Future Science features 19 young scientists, most of whom are presenting their innovative work and ideas to a general audience for the first time. Featured in this collection are William McEwan, a virologist, discussing his research into the biology of antiviral immunity; Naomi Eisenberger, a neuroscientist, wondering how social rejection affects us physically; Jon Kleinberg, a computer scientist, showing what massive datasets can teach us about society and ourselves; and Anthony Aguirre, a physicist, who gives readers a tantalizing glimpse of infinity.

Descubre y Experimenta la revolución de los algoritmos personalizados y descubre cómo están redefiniendo nuestra relación con el contenido en línea. Sumérgete en el mundo de los microinfluencers, quienes están transformando el juego del marketing digital, y explora cómo las redes sociales están siendo utilizadas como herramientas para fomentar la inclusión y la diversidad en una amplia gama de comunidades.

In this short accessible book, leading democratic theorist Jason Brennan guides listeners through the evolution of the concept of democracy and actual democratic practice over time to help them understand the foundations of this longstanding and yet newly fragile political system. In his wide-ranging tour of the concept, Brennan will examine what democracy meant to the Greeks who first developed the concept before examining how it changed throughout European and later Western history.

In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism.

Written for a post-pandemic world, Empathy is a book about learning to be empathetic and then turning that empathy into action. Based on the personal experiences of author David Johnston, the book explores how awakening to the transformative power of listening and caring permanently changes individuals, families, communities, and nations. A how-to manual for a world craving kindness, Empathy offers proof of the inherent goodness of people, and shows how exercising the instinct for kindness creates societies that are both smart and caring.

From its origins in 1973 as a UK tour company with a single bus called ‘Bollocks’, FCL revolutionised the travel industry and morphed into a global giant. It faced challenges including the War on Terror and SARS that wreaked havoc on business. It battled the encroachment of the internet, a disastrous internal restructure and a US acquisition that delivered a profit wipe-out just months before the global financial crisis.

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.

Tarot cards have been around since the Renaissance, and have become increasingly popular in recent years, often due to their prevalence in popular culture. This audiobook is an extensive history of the development and evolution of Tarot, and its place in culture. It begins with an extensive review from its roots as a game, to its supposed connection to ancient Egyptian magic; through its place in secret societies, and to its current use in meditation and psychology.

Over two millennia ago, a Greek philosopher had a number of wondrous insights that paved the way to cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. In this elegant work, acclaimed physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander's overlooked legacy to modern science. He examines Anaximander as a scientist interested in shedding light on the deep nature of scientific thinking, which Rovelli locates in his rebellious ability to reimagine the world again and again.

After seeing his own cells used to grow clumps of new neurons - essentially mini-brains - Philip Ball begins to examine the concepts of identity and consciousness. Delving into humanity's deep evolutionary past to look at how complex creatures like us emerged from single-celled life, he offers a new perspective on how humans think about ourselves.

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.

Science is in trouble. Real questions in desperate need of answers—especially those surrounding ethnicity, gender, climate change, and almost anything related to “health and safety”—are swiftly buckling to the fiery societal demands of what ought to be rather than what is. Can true, fact-based discovery be redeemed? In Science in an Age of Unreason, legendary professor of psychology and biology, John Staddon, unveils the identity crisis afflicting today’s scientific community, and provides an actionable path to recovery.

In a new approach to interdisciplinary literary theory, Literature, Analytically Speaking integrates literary studies with analytic aesthetics, girded by neo-Darwinian evolution. Scrutinizing narrative fiction through a lens provided by analytic philosophy, revered literary theorist Peter Swirski puts new life into literary theory while fashioning a set of practical guidelines for critics in the interpretive trenches.

In ‘Humans Are Doomed To Go Extinct’, an article in Scientific American published in November 2021, veteran Nature editor Dr Henry Gee predicted that Homo sapiens is on a rapid one-way ride to extinction. The article provoked media coverage and comment around the world. In The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, Gee expands the themes of his much-discussed article to book length, charting both the rise as well as the fall of humans. Gee paints a picture of extinction within the next 10,000 years – and suggests ways that our exceptional species might avoid its fate.

In this ambitious book, Jieun Kiaer explores the lives of English words in the twenty-first century, when the creation and use of language has become an increasingly dynamic, interactive, and diverse process in which ordinary people have taken leading roles—offering such coinages as "flexitarian," "MeToo," "glow up," and "shitizen" to "No sabo kids" and beyond. As English language grows ever more diverse, Kiaer believes, we need a paradigm shift.

This classic essay from Jon Krakauer is now available as an unabridged audiobook download. This essay is also included in the Classic Krakauer collection. From the best-selling author of Missoula and Into the Wild: a selection of the singular investigative journalism that made Krakauer famous, covering topics from avalanches on Mt. Everest to a volcano in Washington state; from a wilderness therapy program for teens to an extraordinary cave in New Mexico so unearthly that is used by NASA to better understand Mars.

KI wird unseren Arbeitsmarkt verändern, doch das ist nicht das Problem: Unser Sozialleben macht uns zum Menschen. Doch wenn unser bester Freund eine KI ist – haben wir dann noch eins? Karsten Brensing wirft einen Blick auf den Einzug von KI in die Mitte unserer Gesellschaft. Die Veränderungen werden vor allem auch unser Sozialleben betreffen. Tierisch glücklich sein in einer komplexen Welt. Trotz seiner mentalen Leistungsfähigkeit und des technischen Fortschritts ist der Mensch im Laufe der Evolution nicht gleichsam zufriedener geworden.

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.

More and more states are legalizing marijuana in some form. In the Weeds looks at how our society has become more permissive in the past 150 years - even though marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug by the American government. Sociologists Clayton Mosher and Scott Akins take a deep dive into marijuana policy reform, looking at the incremental developments and the historical, legal, social, and political implications of these changes. They investigate the effects, medicinal applications, and possible harms of marijuana.