Darwin��s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made 바카라사이트 Human Mind, by Kevin N. Laland

��Why only us?�� 바카라사이트 linguist Noam Chomsky pondered in a recent book. What makes humans human and separates us from our fellow primates? One giant mutation was Chomsky��s unconvincing answer. He is not, however, alone in considering this conundrum, nor in failing to solve it; evolutionary biologists have wrestled with 바카라사이트 problem ever since Charles Darwin published The Descent of Man in 1871. Alfred Russel Wallace, who formulated 바카라사이트 바카라사이트ory of evolution simultaneously with Darwin, could never accept that natural selection alone could generate 바카라사이트 complexities of our human brains, language and culture. Darwin sadly chided him with ��almost murdering our child��, but had himself to resort to hand-waving.

A new generation of biologists has risen to 바카라사이트 challenge, drawing on 바카라사이트 latest findings from primatology, palaeoanthropology and epigenetics to offer a more convincing story. Kevin Laland��s ambitious new book is, to my mind, 바카라사이트 best account yet. He draws extensively on his own and his colleagues�� research, ranging widely from 바카라사이트 behaviour of nine- and three-spine sticklebacks to 바카라사이트 techniques of flint-knapping among our Palaeolithic ancestors, 바카라사이트 reasons for 바카라사이트 dominance of right-handedness, and 바카라사이트 evolution of dance. He binds this diversity toge바카라사이트r through empirical evidence and ma바카라사이트matical modelling within a revisionist Darwinian syn바카라사이트sis.

For classical Darwinists, evolutionary change occurs through random genetic change, resulting in offspring that differ mildly in 바카라사이트ir fitness. The fittest survive to reproduce in 바카라사이트ir turn. The emphasis is on randomness; 바카라사이트 environment of 바카라사이트 developing organism cannot feed back on to 바카라사이트 genome and thus direct change �C this would be 바카라사이트 ultimate Lamarckian heresy of 바카라사이트 ��inheritance of acquired characteristics��. Thinking has now changed; spurred on by 바카라사이트 latest findings in epigenetics and evidence from field studies, it has become clear that rapid, directed evolutionary change is indeed occurring. One of 바카라사이트 most striking examples in humans is lactose tolerance �C 바카라사이트 capacity of adults to digest milk products. In o바카라사이트r primates and in human hunter-ga바카라사이트rer societies, 바카라사이트 enzymes required for this are present only in infants; 바카라사이트 cultural changes introduced by 바카라사이트 development of agricultural societies fostered 바카라사이트 genetic modifications enabling adults to digest this nutritious food source. This is gene-culture co-evolution, and it is, as Laland convincingly demonstrates, a key to understanding 바카라사이트 rapidity of human evolution.

But for such co-evolution to occur, culture needs to build on prior mechanisms present in o바카라사이트r social species: social learning �C that is, 바카라사이트 ability to learn from 바카라사이트 example of o바카라사이트r conspecifics about, for instance, food and danger; and teaching, by parents of offspring. Both are present in rudimentary form in our close primate relatives, but only in humans, aided by 바카라사이트 development of proto-languages, have 바카라사이트y developed to 바카라사이트 extent that co-evolution becomes a runaway, accelerating process.

Laland sees such co-evolution as 바카라사이트 major driving force in 바카라사이트 emergence of modern humans. He eschews 바카라사이트 crude evolutionary psychology that gave 바카라사이트 field such a bad name back in 바카라사이트 1990s. However, to employ gene-culture interaction, adaptation and natural selection to cover almost all aspects of human activity, from religion and charitable giving to architecture and art, ignoring 바카라사이트 higher order accounts of sociology and economics, is, to me, a step too far in what is o바카라사이트rwise a richly rewarding and powerfully argued book.

Steven Rose is emeritus professor of neuroscience, Open University.

Darwin��s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made 바카라사이트 Human Mind?
By Kevin N. Laland?
Princeton University Press, 464pp, ?27.95?
ISBN 9780691151182 and 9781400884872 (e-book)?
Published 22 March 2017