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The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve
- Narrated by: Tom Lawrence
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's Summary
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 child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, our languages, and science? The book tackles these issues by drawing on ideas from 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.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-05-2022
Complex Biology & Memology for Dummies
If, like me, you are a layman who does badly with scientific techno babble but still wants to know what's up, this audio book is fantastic.
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- Amazon Customer
- 15-08-2022
Well written and fascinating
The introduction is a silly device that had me ready to quit.
The rest of the book however is a solid exploration of the interaction between genes and culture.
The author doesn’t shy away from controversy and builds his case carefully and thoroughly, even using academic referencing. The writing style is light and uses humour to make potentially difficult to understand material engaging and comprehensible
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- Cam Liston
- 12-01-2023
A great insight to the human mind
I really enjoyed the content the only criticism is the “Alien Scientist” analogy which is NOT required
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