Like the fruitless discussions about when life begins, discussions of the meaning of intelligence are best tabled. Let...
Anthropologist Narby plays the innocent abroad here, querying scientists around the world about intelligence—and finding it in everything that’s alive.
Borrowing from his experience with shamanism (Shamans Through Time, 2001, etc.), Narby begins with an account of how several scientists experienced changed perceptions of nature after consuming the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca, used by Peruvian shamans when they communicate with plants and animals. From there it’s on to labs in Europe and Asia to learn how smart other species are, from bacteria and slime molds to bees, butterflies, birds, and assorted plants and trees. Bacterial species cross-talk for mutual benefit in their complex colonies of “biofilm” (like the one that lines your teeth); slime molds can run mazes; bees can be conditioned; butterflies are superb visual perceivers; outsider birds can “cry wolf” to deceive a flock and capture prey. From the plant kingdom, there’s evidence that some species can essentially creep across the landscape to find the best sites to put down roots, as well as multiple ways to communicate within and among themselves. None of these accounts is exactly new to readers of Science or Nature, but they’re nicely summarized here, along with descriptions of nervous systems and extensive endnotes. What’s new, though, is Narby’s passion to rethink the meaning of intelligence as a human property and give up the reductionist/materialist view of Western science. In its place, he adopts the Japanese word “chi-sei,” roughly defined as a knowingness that allows for decision-making at all levels of life. Actually, such knowingness is perfectly in accord with concepts of adaptation and flexibility in evolution. There’s no need to mystify or invoke the wisdom of shamans. Indeed, Narby admits that science itself has changed, so that even cell-cell signaling and protein-protein interactions can be regarded as forms of decision-making.
Like the fruitless discussions about when life begins, discussions of the meaning of intelligence are best tabled. Let scientists get on with more of the interesting work reported here.Pub Date: March 3, 2005
ISBN: 1-58542-399-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
If that promise of clarity is what awaits us all, then death doesn’t seem so awful, and that is a great gift from Sacks. A...
Valediction from the late neurologist and writer Sacks (On the Move: A Life, 2015, etc.).
In this set of four short essays, much-forwarded opinion pieces from the New York Times, the author ponders illness, specifically the metastatic cancer that spread from eye to liver and in doing so foreclosed any possibility of treatment. His brief reflections on that unfortunate development give way to, yes, gratitude as he examines the good things that he has experienced over what, in the end, turned out to be a rather long life after all, lasting 82 years. To be sure, Sacks has regrets about leaving the world, not least of them not being around to see “a thousand…breakthroughs in the physical and biological sciences,” as well as the night sky sprinkled with stars and the yellow legal pads on which he worked sprinkled with words. Sacks works a few familiar tropes and elaborates others. Charmingly, he reflects on his habit since childhood of associating each year of his life with the element of corresponding atomic weight on the periodic table; given polonium’s “intense, murderous radioactivity,” then perhaps 84 isn’t all that it’s cut out to be. There are some glaring repetitions here, unfortunate given the intense brevity of this book, such as his twice citing Nathaniel Hawthorne’s call to revel in “intercourse with the world”—no, not that kind. Yet his thoughts overall—while not as soul-stirringly inspirational as the similar reflections of Randy Pausch or as bent on chasing down the story as Christopher Hitchens’ last book—are shaped into an austere beauty, as when Sacks writes of being able in his final moments to “see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.”
If that promise of clarity is what awaits us all, then death doesn’t seem so awful, and that is a great gift from Sacks. A fitting, lovely farewell.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-451-49293-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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