What other primates can teach us about human nature.
Addressing the question of whether it is possible to “combine a thriving economy with a humane society,” zoologist de Waal (Psychology/Emory Univ.; Our Inner Ape, 2005, etc.) answers with a resounding yes, turning the tables on economists like Milton Friedman, who justify cutthroat competition based on the notion of survival-of-the-fittest. The author also suggests that the central metaphor in Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene (1976) has been taken too literally. The contagion of phenomena such as laughter, yawning, stretching and stampedes in the face of danger are evidences of herd behavior that we share with other species. A new field of research, “embodied” cognition, explores how empathy emerges as we and other primates “involuntarily enter the bodies of those around us so that their movements and emotions echo within us as if they’re our own.” In 1992, researchers found a mechanism for this behavior, observing “mirror neutrons” firing in a monkey’s brain whether they themselves were eating a peanut or watching an experimenter do so. While not denying the existence of aggression and competition in nature, de Waal provides many charming examples of how empathy—especially when it is coupled with the higher-order cognitive abilities of primates, whales, dolphins and humans, which all have the ability to “adopt another’s point of view”—allows animals to show compassion across species boundaries. This social glue is evidenced in pets who act as companions, peacemaking primates who try to stop fights and offer comfort to the vanquished and mothers responding to their young. De Waal cites the “evolutionary antiquity” of empathy to argue that “society depends on a second invisible hand, one that reaches out to others.”
An appealing celebration of our better nature.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-307-40776-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Categories: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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