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Darwin's unfinished symphony : how culture made the human mind / Kevin N. Laland.

by Laland, Kevin N.

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Princeton University Press, 2017.

Social evolution.

Human evolution.

Social learning.

Cognition and culture.

Brain -- Evolution.

Evolutionary psychology.

9780691151182 (hc.)

xii, 450 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-441) and index.

Foundations of culture. Darwin's unfinished symphony ; Ubiquitous copying ; Why copy? ; A tale of two fishes ; The roots of creativity -- The evolution of the mind. The evolution of intelligence ; High fidelity ; Why we alone have language ; Gene-culture coevolution ; The dawn of civilization ; Foundations of cooperation ; The arts -- Epilogue: Awe without wonder.

Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and language to science and technology. How did the human mind - and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture - evolve from its roots in animal behavior? A captivating new theory of human cognitive evolution. How culture is not just the magnificent end product of an evolutionary process that produced a species unlike all others - it is also the key driving force behind that process. Kevin Laland shows how the learned and socially transmitted activities of our ancestors shaped our intellects through accelerating cycles of evolutionary feedback. The truly unique characteristics of our species - our intelligence, language, teaching, and cooperation - are not adaptive responses to predators, disease, or other external conditions. Rather, humans are creatures of their own making. Laland explains how animals imitate, innovate, and have remarkable traditions of their own. He traces our rise from scavenger apes in prehistory to modern humans able to design iPhones, dance the tango, and send astronauts into space. A new understanding of how culture transformed human evolution. It is the story of how Darwin's intellectual descendants picked up where he left off and took up the challenge of providing a scientific account of the evolution of the human mind. Kevin Laland is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews. He has published over 200 scientific articles and 11 books on topics related to animal behaviour and evolution, particularly social learning, cultural evolution and niche construction.

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