Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Cambridge University Press (2019), Edition: Revised, 386 pages
Description
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.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
Psychology to the rescue
Evolutionary psychology is Steve Stewart-Williams' profession. He teaches it. It is an evolving discipline, which he expands on and defends in The Ape That Understood The Universe. It is a different way of looking at who we are and where we came from.
The book is a
Evolutionary psychology, being the new kid on the block, is a little tentative, and the book is filled with conditionals like “may” and “might”. Stewart-Williams is quite defensive about it all, inserting question answer sections where he can demolish the criticisms. And he does. It helps keep things lively.
The central conceit of the book is that an alien comes to Earth and tries to understand Man from a totally neutral starting position. Every so often, Stewart-Williams comes back to the alien for a moment, but never makes real use of it. The book gains nothing from it, beyond the amusing intro with its “report”.
Really, it is a book about how to think. Stewart-Williams’ angle is very different, analyzing every trait we have in terms of its contribution to (or from) evolution. Looking at life his way is a very different experience: highly analytical, usually very Darwinian, and ever-purposeful. Little is left to mere chance in his world. This makes sense from a Darwinian standpoint, because every being is perfectly adapted to its environment. The difficulty is of course, Man, which has taken itself out of the evolutionary and ecological network, to do his own thing without regard to anything else. Still, his evolutionary roots keep showing.
The chapter on human mate choice describes every conceivable rationale, comparing male and female approaches and attitudes in all kinds of species. But things don’t fit easily into their assigned buckets, and Stewart-Williams almost reluctantly concludes there are sex differences between men and women after all, and it’s not just the context (“Nurture”). This adds some heat to the forever argument about equality and our prejudices in raising children, but doesn’t quite close the door on anything.
It does get a little tiresome, as in the section on violence. Men are more violent than women, not apparently because of testosterone or societal pressure to accumulate wealth (never even considered), but because men need to spread their genes to more offspring. As they age, they become less violent because they need fewer new offspring – though he argues the opposite earlier. Men can and do produce offspring far later than women – basically all their lives (The record is 888 offspring from one Ismail The Bloodthirsty in the 1600s). He says it is the degree of parental investment that drives all other sex differences, from size to shape to behavior.
The most interesting facet is culture, which he saves for last, being the culminating achievement of the species. Man is the lone animal with a culture that accumulates over generations. It allows knowledge to be passed on so we don’t constantly have to reinvent the wheel. It’s one of our many huge differentiators, and Stewart-Williams thinks it is the most important one. But he claims culture is a by-product, not an evolutionary adaptation. It fits in the same bucket as thumb-sucking, he says. This is not settled science.
Among the ponderables:
-Intelligent design is a product of natural selection, not the cause. Evolution refines design until it seems intelligent.
-As genes are to life, as atoms are to matter, so memes are to culture. Memes are the smallest units of culture, from a hand signal to a Mars explorer to a Cameron blockbuster. They allow Man to pool ideas and resources, and build outsized accomplishments – for themselves and for generations forward.
-Memes are not adaptive or the result of natural selection. They are external to evolution. They constantly evolve and mutate with their hosts’ understanding of them.
There is a lot of inductive reasoning in evolutionary psychology. It is not possible to prove definitively what the discipline currently claims. “It’s all too easy to go crazy with pan-adaptationist reasoning,” he admits.. It doesn’t help that Stewart-Williams can be fast and loose with facts.
But the book dives deep to make its case in a seemingly endless variety of aspects. Chapters focus on genes, dating, sex, marriage, and altruism, as well as Culture. This is Stewart-Williams’ course, and he gives it his quite substantial all. His passion is clearly on display.
So it’s not so much the ape that understood the universe. It’s the ape learning to understand the ape.
David Wineberg
Evolutionary psychology is Steve Stewart-Williams' profession. He teaches it. It is an evolving discipline, which he expands on and defends in The Ape That Understood The Universe. It is a different way of looking at who we are and where we came from.
The book is a
Show More
bucket-filler. Stewart-Williams tries to rationalize everything we are by assigning every aspect to a bucket, like evolutionary adaptation or side-effect. He does a fine job of it, though there is plenty of room for disagreement. For example, women supposedly select mates for their intelligence and humor. “The general rule is, whatever the females want, the males evolve to provide,” he says. If that were the case, the world would be filled with brilliant, witty people by now, as the dopes and the dullards would be unable to pass on their woefully inadequate genes.Evolutionary psychology, being the new kid on the block, is a little tentative, and the book is filled with conditionals like “may” and “might”. Stewart-Williams is quite defensive about it all, inserting question answer sections where he can demolish the criticisms. And he does. It helps keep things lively.
The central conceit of the book is that an alien comes to Earth and tries to understand Man from a totally neutral starting position. Every so often, Stewart-Williams comes back to the alien for a moment, but never makes real use of it. The book gains nothing from it, beyond the amusing intro with its “report”.
Really, it is a book about how to think. Stewart-Williams’ angle is very different, analyzing every trait we have in terms of its contribution to (or from) evolution. Looking at life his way is a very different experience: highly analytical, usually very Darwinian, and ever-purposeful. Little is left to mere chance in his world. This makes sense from a Darwinian standpoint, because every being is perfectly adapted to its environment. The difficulty is of course, Man, which has taken itself out of the evolutionary and ecological network, to do his own thing without regard to anything else. Still, his evolutionary roots keep showing.
The chapter on human mate choice describes every conceivable rationale, comparing male and female approaches and attitudes in all kinds of species. But things don’t fit easily into their assigned buckets, and Stewart-Williams almost reluctantly concludes there are sex differences between men and women after all, and it’s not just the context (“Nurture”). This adds some heat to the forever argument about equality and our prejudices in raising children, but doesn’t quite close the door on anything.
It does get a little tiresome, as in the section on violence. Men are more violent than women, not apparently because of testosterone or societal pressure to accumulate wealth (never even considered), but because men need to spread their genes to more offspring. As they age, they become less violent because they need fewer new offspring – though he argues the opposite earlier. Men can and do produce offspring far later than women – basically all their lives (The record is 888 offspring from one Ismail The Bloodthirsty in the 1600s). He says it is the degree of parental investment that drives all other sex differences, from size to shape to behavior.
The most interesting facet is culture, which he saves for last, being the culminating achievement of the species. Man is the lone animal with a culture that accumulates over generations. It allows knowledge to be passed on so we don’t constantly have to reinvent the wheel. It’s one of our many huge differentiators, and Stewart-Williams thinks it is the most important one. But he claims culture is a by-product, not an evolutionary adaptation. It fits in the same bucket as thumb-sucking, he says. This is not settled science.
Among the ponderables:
-Intelligent design is a product of natural selection, not the cause. Evolution refines design until it seems intelligent.
-As genes are to life, as atoms are to matter, so memes are to culture. Memes are the smallest units of culture, from a hand signal to a Mars explorer to a Cameron blockbuster. They allow Man to pool ideas and resources, and build outsized accomplishments – for themselves and for generations forward.
-Memes are not adaptive or the result of natural selection. They are external to evolution. They constantly evolve and mutate with their hosts’ understanding of them.
There is a lot of inductive reasoning in evolutionary psychology. It is not possible to prove definitively what the discipline currently claims. “It’s all too easy to go crazy with pan-adaptationist reasoning,” he admits.. It doesn’t help that Stewart-Williams can be fast and loose with facts.
But the book dives deep to make its case in a seemingly endless variety of aspects. Chapters focus on genes, dating, sex, marriage, and altruism, as well as Culture. This is Stewart-Williams’ course, and he gives it his quite substantial all. His passion is clearly on display.
So it’s not so much the ape that understood the universe. It’s the ape learning to understand the ape.
David Wineberg
Show Less
LibraryThing member Paul_S
Nothing that hasn't been said before but well put. The appendix is a good idea. Maybe when civilisation comes to its senses again it can be dropped as unnecessary without having to edit the book.
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
8.98 inches
ISBN
1108732755 / 9781108732758
Similar in this library
DDC/MDS
| 155.7 |