In The Evolution of Mind, outstanding figures on the cutting edge of evolutionary psychology follow clues provided by current neuroscientific evidence to illuminate many puzzling questions of human cognitive evolution. With contributions from psychologists, ethologists, anthropologists, and philosophers, the book offers a broad range of approaches to explore the mysteries of the mind's evolution - from investigating the biological functions of human cognition to drawing comparisons between human and animal cognitive abilities.
"Geary also explores a number of issues that are of interest in modern society, including how general intelligence relates to academic achievement, occupational status, and income."--BOOK JACKET.
From the nature-nurture question which has occupied philosophers and scientists for thousands of years to the most recent debates about how the mind is structured, Plotkin looks at what it means to be human from an evolutionist's perspective.
In this short and accessible book, Ronald de Sousa shows us that in order to understand what is truly important about our reasoning capacity, we need to change our thinking about what rationality actually is.
Over two dozen Christian leaders describe how they changed their minds about evolution Perhaps no topic appears as potentially threatening to evangelicals as evolution. The very idea seems to exclude God from the creation the book of Genesis celebrates. Yet many evangelicals have come to accept the conclusions of science while still holding to a vigorous belief in God and the Bible. How did they make this journey? How did they come to embrace both evolution and faith? Here are stories from a community of people who love Jesus and honor the authority of the Bible, but who also agree with what science says about the cosmos, our planet and the life that so abundantly fills it. Among the contributors are Scientists such as: Francis Collins Deborah Haarsma Denis Lamoureux Theologians and philosophers such as: James K. A. Smith Amos Yong Oliver Crisp Biblical scholars such as: N. T. Wright Scot McKnight Tremper Longman III Pastors such as: John Ortberg Ken Fong Laura Truax
An enormous amount of scientific research compels two fundamental conclusions about the human mind: The mind is the product of evolution; and the mind is shaped by culture. These two perspectives on the human mind are not incompatible, but, until recently, their compatibility has resisted rigorous scholarly inquiry. Evolutionary psychology documents many ways in which genetic adaptations govern the operations of the human mind. But evolutionary inquiries only occasionally grapple seriously with questions about human culture and cross-cultural differences. By contrast, cultural psychology documents many ways in which thought and behavior are shaped by different cultural experiences. But cultural inquires rarely consider evolutionary processes. Even after decades of intensive research, these two perspectives on human psychology have remained largely divorced from each other. But that is now changing - and that is what this book is about. Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind is the first scholarly book to integrate evolutionary and cultural perspectives on human psychology. The contributors include world-renowned evolutionary, cultural, social, and cognitive psychologists. These chapters reveal many novel insights linking human evolution to both human cognition and human culture – including the evolutionary origins of cross-cultural differences. The result is a stimulating introduction to an emerging integrative perspective on human nature.
Evolution of Mind, Brain, and Culture draws together studies in archaeology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, genetics, neuroscience, and environmental science to investigate the evolution of the human mind, the brain, and the human capacity for culture.
This bold and brilliant book asks the ultimate question of the life sciences: How did the human mind acquire its incomparable power? In seeking the answer, Merlin Donald traces the evolution of human culture and cognition from primitive apes to artificial intelligence, presenting an enterprising and original theory of how the human mind evolved from its presymbolic form.
A New York University psychologist argues that the mind is a "kluge"-a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption-as he ponders the accidents of evolution that caused this structure and what we can do about it.
This book updates the Dual Coding Theory of mind (DCT), a theory of modern human cognition consisting of separate but interconnected nonverbal and verbal systems. Allan Paivio, a leading scholar in cognitive psychology, presents this masterwork as new findings in psychological research on memory, thought, language, and other core areas have flourished, as have pioneering developments in the cognitive neurosciences. Mind and Its Evolution provides a thorough exploration into how these adaptive nonverbal and verbal systems might have evolved, as well as a careful comparison of DCT with contrasting "single-code" cognitive theories. Divided into four parts, this text begins with a general, systematic theory of modern human cognition as the reference model for interpreting the cognitive abilities of evolutionary ancestors. The first half of the book discusses mind as it is; the second half addresses how it came to be that way. Each half is subdivided into two parts defined by thematic chapters. Mind and Its Evolution concludes with evidence-based suggestions about nourishing mental growth through applications of DCT in education, psychotherapy, and health. This volume will appeal to cognitive and evolutionary psychologists, as well as students in the areas of memory, language, cognition, and mind evolution specialists in psychology, philosophy, and other disciplines.
