Download or read book The Thinking Ape written by Richard W. Byrne and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Intelligence" has long been considered to be a feature unique to human beings, giving us the capacity to imagine, to think, to deceive, to make complex connections between cause and effect, to devise elaborate stategies for solving problems. However, like all our other features, intelligenceis a product of evolutionary change. Until recently, it was difficult to obtain evidence of this process from the frail testimony of a few bones and stone tools. It has become clear in the last 15 years that the origins of human intelligence can be investigated by the comparative study ofprimates, our closest non-human relatives, giving strong impetus to the case for an "evolutionary psychology", the scientific study of the mind.
Download or read book The Thinking Ape written by Richard Byrne and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Irrational Ape written by David Robert Grimes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE IRISH TIMES TOP FIVE BESTSELLER 'An unstoppable page-turner. If our leaders were forced to read this book, the world would be a safer place' Richard Dawkins 'A beautifully reasoned book about our own unreasonableness' Robin Ince Why did revolutionary China consider the sparrow an 'animal of capitalism' - and what happened when they tried to wipe them out? With a cast of murderous popes, snake-oil salesmen and superstitious pigeons, find out why flawed logic puts us all at risk, and how critical thinking can save the world. It may seem a big claim, but knowing how to think clearly and critically has literally helped save the world. In September 1983, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's early warning system showed five US missiles heading towards the country. Stanislaw Petrov knew his duty: he was to inform Moscow that nuclear war had begun, so that they could launch an immediate and devastating response. Instead, he made a call to say the system was faulty. He'd assessed the situation and reasoned that an error was more likely than such a limited attack. We may not have to save the planet from nuclear annihilation, of course, but our ability to think critically has never been more important. In a world where fake news, mistrust of experts, prejudice and ignorance all too often hold sway, we can all too easily be misled over issues such as vaccinations, climate change or conspiracy theories. We live in an era where access to all the knowledge in the world is at our fingertips, yet that also means misinformation and falsehoods can spread further and faster than ever before. In The Irrational Ape, David Robert Grimes shows how we can be lured into making critical mistakes or drawing false conclusions, and how to avoid such errors. Given the power of modern science and the way that movements can unite to protest a cause via social media, we are in dangerous times. But fortunately, we can learn from our mistakes, and by critical thinking and scientific method we can discover how to apply these techniques to everything from deciding what insurance to buy to averting global disaster. This book, packed with fascinating case studies and examples, helps ensure we are ready for the modern world.
Download or read book The Ape that Understood the Universe written by Steve Stewart-Williams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-21 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.
Download or read book An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood written by Gregory F. Tague and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gregory F. Tague’s An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood argues that great apes are moral individuals because they engage in a land ethic as ecosystem engineers to generate ecologically sustainable biomes for themselves and other species. Tague shows that we need to recognize apes as eco-engineers in order to save them and their habitats, and that in so doing, we will ultimately save earth’s biosphere. The book draws on extensive empirical research from the ecology and behavior of great apes and synthesizes past and current understanding of the similarities in cognition, social behavior, and culture found in apes. Importantly, this book proposes that differences between humans and apes provide the foundation for the call to recognize forest personhood in the great apes. While all ape species are alike in terms of cognition, intelligence, and behaviors, there is a vital contrast: unlike humans, great apes are efficient ecological engineers. Therefore, simian forest sovereignty is critical to conservation efforts in controlling global warming, and apes should be granted dominion over their tropical forests. Weaving together philosophy, biology, socioecology, and elements from eco-psychology, this book provides a glimmer of hope for future acknowledgment of the inherent ethic that ape species embody in their eco-centered existence on this planet.
Download or read book APE Author Publisher Entrepreneur written by Guy Kawasaki and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: APE’s thesis is powerful yet simple: filling the roles of Author, Publisher and Entrepreneur yields results that rival traditional publishing.
Download or read book Biocivilisations written by Predrag Slijepcevic and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2023-05-18 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biocivilisations is a fascinating, original and important exploration into how complex civilisations existed on Earth long before humans. What is life? This is arguably the most important question in all of science. Many scientists believe life can be reduced to ‘mechanistic’ factors, such as genes and information codes. Everything can be sequenced and explained. But in a world as rich and complex as this one, can such an assertion really be true? A growing army of scientists, philosophers and artists do not share this mechanistic vision for the science of life. The gene metaphor is not only too simplistic but also misleading. If there is a way to reduce life to a single principle, how does that principle acknowledge the creativity of life that turns both genetic and information determinism on their heads? Biocivilisations is a groundbreaking book exploring the mysteries of life and its deep uncertainty. Dr Predrag Slijepčević turns anthropocentric scientific thinking on its head, showing how the humble bacteria created the equivalent of cities and connected them with information highways, bringing our planet to life three thousand million years ago. He explains how bacteria, amoebas, plants, insects, birds, whales, elephants and countless other species not only preceded human beings but also demonstrate elements of complex civilisation – communication, agriculture, science, art, medicine and more – that we associate with human achievement. More than 99.99 percent of life on Earth has existed without humanity, and life will continue without humans long into the future. Biocivilisations is an important rethinking of the current scientific paradigm. It challenges us to reconsider the limited scope and time-window of our current ‘scientific revolution’ and to fundamentally reimagine what we call ‘life on Earth’.
Download or read book The Awakened Ape written by Jevan Pradas and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is life's most intense pleasure? Did you know that it is free, safe and feels way better than sex? Or that the key to pristine health is not only to eat like a caveman, but to live like one?In The Awakened Ape Jevan Pradas uses evolutionary psychology to hack the human mind and body to answer the question: "How can we enjoy life to the fullest?" The results, while unexpected, are completely backed by science.Perpetually bored, anxious, fatigued and overweight, modern society has failed to deliver the happiness it promised. The remedy, Jevan argues, is in a unique synthesis of a Paleolithic lifestyle and Buddhist meditation.A sprawling journey, featuring Jevan's adventures with naked Amazonian tribes and retreats with enlightened monks to learn the secrets of optimal well-being, The Awakened Ape will teach you how to achieve deep states of bliss. All while shaping your body into the fit and healthy animal millions of years of evolution programmed you to be.
Download or read book The Artificial Ape written by Timothy Taylor and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2010-07-20 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breakthrough theory that tools and technology are the real drivers of human evolution Although humans are one of the great apes, along with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are remarkably different from them. Unlike our cousins who subsist on raw food, spend their days and nights outdoors, and wear a thick coat of hair, humans are entirely dependent on artificial things, such as clothing, shelter, and the use of tools, and would die in nature without them. Yet, despite our status as the weakest ape, we are the masters of this planet. Given these inherent deficits, how did humans come out on top? In this fascinating new account of our origins, leading archaeologist Timothy Taylor proposes a new way of thinking about human evolution through our relationship with objects. Drawing on the latest fossil evidence, Taylor argues that at each step of our species' development, humans made choices that caused us to assume greater control of our evolution. Our appropriation of objects allowed us to walk upright, lose our body hair, and grow significantly larger brains. As we push the frontiers of scientific technology, creating prosthetics, intelligent implants, and artificially modified genes, we continue a process that started in the prehistoric past, when we first began to extend our powers through objects. Weaving together lively discussions of major discoveries of human skeletons and artifacts with a reexamination of Darwin's theory of evolution, Taylor takes us on an exciting and challenging journey that begins to answer the fundamental question about our existence: what makes humans unique, and what does that mean for our future?
Download or read book Everything Bad is Good for You written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.
Download or read book The Animal Ethics Reader written by Susan J. Armstrong and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 1069 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Animal Ethics Reader is an acclaimed anthology containing both classic and contemporary readings, making it ideal for anyone coming to the subject for the first time. It provides a thorough introduction to the central topics, controversies and ethical dilemmas surrounding the treatment of animals, covering a wide range of contemporary issues, such as animal activism, genetic engineering, and environmental ethics. The extracts are arranged thematically under the following clear headings: Theories of Animal Ethics Nonhuman Animal Experiences Primates and Cetaceans Animals for Food Animal Experimentation Animals and Biotechnology Ethics and Wildlife Zoos and Aquariums Animal Companions Animal Law and Animal Activism Readings from leading experts in the field including Peter Singer, Bernard E. Rollin and Jane Goodall are featured, as well as selections from Tom Regan, Jane Goodall, Donald Griffin, Temple Grandin, Ben A. Minteer, Christine Korsgaard and Mark Rowlands. Classic extracts are well balanced with contemporary selections, helping to present the latest developments in the field. This revised and updated Third Edition includes 31 new readings on a range of subjects, including animal rights, captive chimpanzees, industrial farm animal production, genetic engineering, keeping cetaceans in captivity, animal cruelty, and animal activism. The Third Edition also is printed with a slightly larger page format and in an easier-to-read typeface. Featuring contextualizing introductions by the editors, study questions and further reading suggestions as the end of each chapter, this will be essential reading for any student taking a course in the subject. With a new foreword by Bernard E. Rollin.
Download or read book The Irrational Ape written by David Robert Grimes and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How critical thinking and scientific method can help us to make the right decisions and spot fake news.
Download or read book Last Ape Standing written by Chip Walter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-01-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past 150 years scientists have discovered evidence that at least twenty-seven species of humans evolved on planet Earth. These weren't simply variations on apes, but upright-walking humans who lived side by side, competing, cooperating, sometimes even mating with our direct ancestors. Why did the line of ancient humans who eventually evolved into us survive when the others were shown the evolutionary door? Chip Walter draws on new scientific discoveries to tell the fascinating tale of how our survival was linked to our ancestors being born more prematurely than others, having uniquely long and rich childhoods, evolving a new kind of mind that made us resourceful and emotionally complex; how our highly social nature increased our odds of survival; and why we became self aware in ways that no other animal seems to be. Last Ape Standing also profiles the mysterious "others" who evolved with us-the Neanderthals of Europe, the "Hobbits" of Indonesia, the Denisovans of Siberia and the just-discovered Red Deer Cave people of China who died off a mere eleven thousand years ago. Last Ape Standing is evocative science writing at its best-a witty, engaging and accessible story that explores the evolutionary events that molded us into the remarkably unique creatures we are; an investigation of why we do, feel, and think the things we do as a species, and as people-good and bad, ingenious and cunning, heroic and conflicted.
Download or read book Ape House written by Sara Gruen and published by Bond Street Books. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wildly entertaining new novel from the bestselling author of Water for Elephants. Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships—but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets—especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest—and unlikeliest—phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda. Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen’s place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before. BONUS: This edition contains a reader's guide.
Download or read book The Symbolic Species Evolved written by Theresa Schilhab and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-03-26 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology is a compilation of the best contributions from Symbolic Species Conferences I, II (which took place in 2006, 2007). In 1997 the American anthropologist Terrence Deacon published The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain. The book is widely considered a seminal work in the subject of evolutionary cognition. However, Deacons book was the first step – further steps have had to be taken. The proposed anthology is such an important associate. The contributions are written by a wide variety of scholars each with a unique view on evolutionary cognition and the questions raised by Terrence Deacon - emergence in evolution, the origin of language, the semiotic 'missing link', Peirce's semiotics in evolution and biology, biosemiotics, evolutionary cognition, Baldwinian evolution, the neuroscience of linguistic capacities as well as phylogeny of the homo species, primatology, embodied cognition and knowledge types.
Download or read book The Brain written by New Scientist and published by Nicholas Brealey. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Join New Scientist on a mind-expanding rollercoaster ride through intelligence, creativity, your unconscious and beyond. Congratulations! You're the proud owner of the most complex information processing device in the known universe. The human brain comes equipped with all sorts of useful design features, but also many bugs and weaknesses. Problem is you don't get an owner's manual. You have to just plug and play. As a result, most of us never properly understand how our brains work and what they're truly capable of. We fail get the best out of them, ignore some of their most useful features and struggle to overcome their design faults. Until now, that is. Featuring witty essays, enlightening infographics and fascinating "try this at home" experiments, New Scientist take you on a journey through intelligence, memory, creativity, the unconscious and beyond. From the strange ways to distort what we think of as "reality" to the brain hacks that can improve memory, The Brain: A User's Guide will help you understand your brain and show you how to use it to its full potential.
Download or read book How the Mind Works written by Steven Pinker and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-06-22 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A model of scientific writing: erudite, witty, and clear." —New York Review of Books In this Pulitzer Prize finalist and national bestseller, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness? How the Mind Works synthesizes the most satisfying explanations of our mental life from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and other fields to explain what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and contemplate the mysteries of life. This edition of Pinker's bold and buoyant classic is updated with a new foreword by the author.
