Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose

Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose

Author: Deirdre Barrett

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2010-02-22

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0393077330

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How our once-helpful instincts got hijacked by our garish modern world. Have you ever wondered why some men choose pornography over actual women? Why so many people watch Friends instead of going out with their own buddies? Why a person would “feed” a plastic Pocket Pet while shirking real duties? Why both sides of every war see the other as the aggressor against whom their “Department of Defense” must respond? Harvard evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett explains how human instincts—for food, sex, or territorial protection—developed for life on the savannah ten thousand years ago, not for today’s world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. Evolution, quite simply, has been unable to keep pace with the rapid changes of modern life. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects—from candy to pornography to atomic bombs—that gratify outmoded but persistent drives with dangerous results. In the 1930s Dutch Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen found that birds that lay small, pale-blue eggs speckled with gray preferred to sit on giant, bright-blue, plaster dummies with black polka dots. He coined the term “supernormal stimuli” to describe these imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and, oddly, exert a stronger attraction than real things. Obviously these hard-wired preferences pose a danger to a species’ survival. Barrett’s singular insight is to apply this phenomenon for the first time to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment. Her book adroitly demonstrates how supernormal stimuli are a driving force in many of today’s most pressing problems, including obesity, our addiction to television and video games, and the past century’s extraordinarily violent wars. Man-made imitations, it turns out, have wreaked havoc on how we nurture our children, what food we put into our bodies, how we make love and war, and even how we understand ourselves. Barrett does more than pull the fire alarm to show how these unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. There is a hopeful message here as well. Once we recognize how supernormal stimuli operate, we can craft new approaches to modern predicaments. Humans have one stupendous advantage over Tinbergen’s birds: a giant brain. The message of this book is that this gives us the unique ability to exercise self-control, override instincts that lead us astray, and save ourselves from civilization’s gaudy traps.


Supernormal Stimuli

Supernormal Stimuli

Author: Deirdre Barrett

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2010-01-26

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 039306848X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Our instincts--for food, sex, or territorial protection-- evolved for life on the savannahs 10,000 years ago, not in today's world of densely populated cities, technological innovations, and pollution. We now have access to a glut of larger-than-life objects, from candy to pornography to atomic weapons--that gratify these gut instincts with often-dangerous results. Animal biologists coined the term "supernormal stimuli" to describe imitations that appeal to primitive instincts and exert a stronger pull than real things, such as soccer balls that geese prefer over eggs. Evolutionary psychologist Deirdre Barrett applies this concept to the alarming disconnect between human instinct and our created environment, demonstrating how supernormal stimuli are a major cause of today's most pressing problems, including obesity and war. However, Barrett does more than show how unfettered instincts fuel dangerous excesses. She also reminds us that by exercising self-control we can rein them in, potentially saving ourselves and civilization.


Waistland: A (R)evolutionary View of Our Weight and Fitness Crisis

Waistland: A (R)evolutionary View of Our Weight and Fitness Crisis

Author: Deirdre Barrett

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2007-06-17

Total Pages: 271

ISBN-13: 0393066673

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett tackles the obesity and fitness crisis from an evolutionary standpoint. In the modern jungle of burgers, couches, and remote controls, obesity is an enormous and growing epidemic. Weight-loss books and diet gurus urge us to "listen to our bodies," but our instincts are designed for the African savannah, not food courts. The sugary and fatty foods that we, as hunter-gatherers, are programmed to forage used to be hard to come by. Now they're as close as the vending machine down the hall. Radical changes are necessary and, fortunately, are biologically easier than small or gradual changes in diet. Barrett tells us how to reprogram our bodies, break food addictions, and ignore our attraction to "supernormal stimuli"—artificial creations that appeal to our instincts more than the natural objects they mimic. Barrett delves into scientific research—from animal ethology to evolution—to show the disastrous direction in which our instincts have led us, and how, using our intellect, we can get back on course.


The Big Book of Hacks

The Big Book of Hacks

Author: Doug Cantor

Publisher: Weldon Owen International

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 1616289465

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ingenious (and hilarious) projects that aspiring makers will love, brought to you by the tinkerers at Popular Science magazine. From useful, doable gadgets to outlandish contraptions that you’d likely be wise to avoid, this showcase of ingenuity is an entertaining tribute to the inventive spirit. In this book from the science and technology magazine that’s been inspiring everyday people for nearly 150 years, you’ll discover: Geek Toys: Be the life of any party with rad gaming hacks, amazing pyrotechnics, quirky DIY robots, wow-inducing projectiles, and lots of ways to make beer even better. Home Improvements: Pimp out your pad with a laser-security system, an improvised sous-vide cooker, and a life-sized cardboard display of anyone you want. Gadget Upgrades: Want to stash a flash drive in an old cassette? Use a DIY stylus on a touchscreen? Improvise a fisheye lens for your camera? With this book, you can. Things That Go: Give your motorbike a Tron vibe, deck out your car with an action-figure hood ornament, and keep gadgets charged on the go with a solar-powered backpack. …and much more!


The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior

The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior

Author: Lance Workman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 1517

ISBN-13: 1108900968

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The transformative wave of Darwinian insight continues to expand throughout the human sciences. While still centered on evolution-focused fields such as evolutionary psychology, ethology, and human behavioral ecology, this insight has also influenced cognitive science, neuroscience, feminist discourse, sociocultural anthropology, media studies, and clinical psychology. This handbook's goal is to amplify the wave by bringing together world-leading experts to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of evolution-oriented and influenced fields. While evolutionary psychology remains at the core of the collection, it also covers the history, current standing, debates, and future directions of the panoply of fields entering the Darwinian fold. As such, The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior is a valuable reference not just for evolutionary psychologists but also for scholars and students from many fields who wish to see how the evolutionary perspective is relevant to their own work.


Primal Awareness

Primal Awareness

Author: Don Trent Jacobs

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1998-09-01

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1620550474

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The remarkable story of one man's rediscovery of his primordial mandate and of the strange journey that took him there • Explores the innate knowledge that exists within us all, a "primal awareness," that can help us to live in harmony with our world • Shows how we can rediscover this unseeable realm In 1983, caught in a violent rainstorm while kayaking the Rio Urique in Mexico's Copper Canyon, Don Trent Jacobs was swept into an impassable catacomb of underwater tunnels toward what he believed was certain death. But instead of panic, Jacobs found himself filled with a strange consciousness that left him feeling at peace and invigorated with a confidence he had never before known. Moments later he was spit from the tunnel alive--not at the end of his journey, but only at its beginning. Primal Awareness tells the story of Don Trent Jacobs's remarkable vision of the human mind and heart and the compelling spiritual quest that brought him to it. Through his experiences with the Raramuri people of Mexico and his research of other indigenous societies, Jacobs identifies what he calls our "primal awareness," an innate knowledge that exists within us all. Jacobs shows how we can rediscover this primordial mandate that unites all things and that helps us to find our own inner strength an harmony.


The Committee of Sleep

The Committee of Sleep

Author: Deirdre Barrett

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Drawing on examples of artists, scientists, writers, and others who have used dreams to solve problems, the author of The Pregnant Man explains how dreams can foster creativity, enhance inspiration, and resolve problems.


Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior

Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior

Author: Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1493903144

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume in the Springer Series in Evolutionary Psychology presents a state of the art view of the topic of sexuality and sexual behavior drawing on theoretical constructs and research of noted individuals in the field. Comprehensive and multi-disciplinary, this book seeks to provide a broad overview without sacrificing the complexity of a multi-faceted approach. The book is framed by introductory and closing sections that provide a context for the range of ideas contained within. Ample space is provided in designated sections that focus on key areas of sexuality from both male and female perspectives and that include information from primate studies. This volume can serve as a graduate text in sexual behavior in evolutionary terms and as a guide for further research.


Computational Science – ICCS 2021

Computational Science – ICCS 2021

Author: Maciej Paszynski

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-06-11

Total Pages: 609

ISBN-13: 3030779645

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The six-volume set LNCS 12742, 12743, 12744, 12745, 12746, and 12747 constitutes the proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Computational Science, ICCS 2021, held in Krakow, Poland, in June 2021.* The total of 260 full papers and 57 short papers presented in this book set were carefully reviewed and selected from 635 submissions. 48 full and 14 short papers were accepted to the main track from 156 submissions; 212 full and 43 short papers were accepted to the workshops/ thematic tracks from 479 submissions. The papers were organized in topical sections named: Part I: ICCS Main Track Part II: Advances in High-Performance Computational Earth Sciences: Applications and Frameworks; Applications of Computational Methods in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning; Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing for Advanced Simulations; Biomedical and Bioinformatics Challenges for Computer Science Part III: Classifier Learning from Difficult Data; Computational Analysis of Complex Social Systems; Computational Collective Intelligence; Computational Health Part IV: Computational Methods for Emerging Problems in (dis-)Information Analysis; Computational Methods in Smart Agriculture; Computational Optimization, Modelling and Simulation; Computational Science in IoT and Smart Systems Part V: Computer Graphics, Image Processing and Artificial Intelligence; Data-Driven Computational Sciences; Machine Learning and Data Assimilation for Dynamical Systems; MeshFree Methods and Radial Basis Functions in Computational Sciences; Multiscale Modelling and Simulation Part VI: Quantum Computing Workshop; Simulations of Flow and Transport: Modeling, Algorithms and Computation; Smart Systems: Bringing Together Computer Vision, Sensor Networks and Machine Learning; Software Engineering for Computational Science; Solving Problems with Uncertainty; Teaching Computational Science; Uncertainty Quantification for Computational Models *The conference was held virtually. Chapter “Effective Solution of Ill-posed Inverse Problems with Stabilized Forward Solver” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.


Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology

Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology

Author: Charles Crawford

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2013-03-07

Total Pages: 664

ISBN-13: 113478869X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive problems early humans faced in ancestral human environments, the nature of psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with those ancient problems, and the ability of the resulting evolved psychological mechanisms to deal with the problems people face in the modern world. Evolutionary psychology is currently advancing our understanding of altruism, moral behavior, family violence, sexual aggression, warfare, aesthetics, the nature of language, and gender differences in mate choice and perception. It is helping us understand the relationship between cognitive science, developmental psychology, behavior genetics, personality, and social psychology. Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology provides an up-to-date review of the ideas, issues, and applications of contemporary evolutionary psychology. It is suitable for senior undergraduates, first-year graduate students, or professionals who wish to become conversant with the major issues currently shaping the emergence of this dynamic new field. It will be interesting to psychologists, cognitive scientists, and anyone using new developments in the theory of evolution to gain new insights into human behavior.