The evolved apprentice: how evolution made humans unique

by Sterelny, Kim

Type Book

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Title Statements

Full title :The evolved apprentice : how evolution made humans unique / Kim Sterelny.

Summary

"Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great ape relatives. Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from those of the other great apes. No other great ape lineage--including those of chimpanzees and gorillas--seems to have undergone such a profound transformation. In The Evolved Apprentice, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively, as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes. Sterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives. Sterelny proposes that humans developed a new form of ecological interaction with their environment, cooperative foraging, which led to positive feedback linking ecological cooperation, cultural learning, and environmental change. The ability to cope with the immense variety of human ancestral environments and social forms, he argues, depended not just on adapted minds but also on adapted developmental environments."--Jacket.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2012.

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):The MIT Press
Place of Publication:Cambridge, Mass
Language:eng
Publication Date:2012.

Notes

"A Bradford book."

The Physical Object

Description:xvi, 242 pages ; : 24 cm.

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9780262016797, 0262016796, 9780262302814, 0262302810, 9780262526661, 0262526662
oclc:ocn733546576
LC Classification:BF698.95
Dewey Decimal:155.7

The challenge of novelty : The social intelligence hypothesis ; Cooperative foraging ; Cooperative foraging and knowledge accumulation ; Life in a changing world -- Accumulating cognitive capital : A lineage explanation of social learning ; Feedback loops ; The apprentice learning model -- Adapted individuals, adapted environments : Behavioral modernity ; The symbolic species ; Public symbols and social worlds ; Preserving and expanding information ; Niche construction and Neanderthal extinction -- The human cooperation syndrome : Triggering cooperation ; A cooperation complex ; The grandmother hypothesis ; Foragers: ancient and modern ; Hunting: provisioning or signaling? -- Costs and commitments : Free riders ; Control and commitment ; Commitment mechanisms ; Signals, investments, and interventions ; Hunting and commitment ; Commitment through investment ; Primitive trust -- Signals, cooperation, and learning : Sperber's dilemma ; Two faces of cultural learning ; Honesty mechanisms ; The fold as educators -- From skills to norms : Norms and communities ; Moral nativism ; Self-control, vigilance, and persuasion ; Reactive and reflective moral response ; Moral apprentices ; The bi…

Subjects

Biological Evolution Cooperation Cooperative Behavior Évolution Évolution (Biologie) Evolution (Biology) Evolutionary psychology Evolutionspsychologie Hominisation Human Characteristics Kooperation Naturphilosophie Psychologie Psychologie évolutionniste Psychology