Audiobook17 hours
The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
Written by Joseph Henrich
Narrated by Jonathan Yen
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals? This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains-on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations.
Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology.
Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuroscientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology.
Author
Joseph Henrich
Joseph Henrich is an anthropologist and the author of The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, among other books. He is the chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, where his research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making, and culture.
Related to The Secret of Our Success
Related audiobooks
The Meme Machine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Human: A Theory of Ontogeny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Minds Make Societies: How Cognition Explains the World Humans Create Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conformity: The Power of Social Influences Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Origins of Creativity Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meaning of Human Existence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not Born Yesterday: The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Social Conquest of Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Human Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Enigma of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Delusions Of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Village Effect: How Face-to-Face Contact Can Make Us Healthier, Happier, and Smarter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Biology For You
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Confident Mind: A Battle-Tested Guide to Unshakable Performance Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Journey Through The Human Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Change Your Brain, Change Your Life (Before 25): Change Your Developing Mind for Real-World Success Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lifespan: Why We Age—and Why We Don't Have To Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How the Mind Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hot Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Womb: The Inside Story of Where We All Began Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Second Nature: A Gardener's Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Secret of Our Success
Rating: 4.5000002105263155 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
57 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lots of interesting stuff here, although I couldn't follow all of it. The ideas of cultural evolution lead to a lot of great questions.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent non-fiction on the concept of cultural learning, cultural evolution, and gene-culture interaction. Henrich argues that the success of the human species derives from the capacity to pass on complex cultural information and practices, and that this capability must be understood as a selected trait. He makes a compelling case, and one studded with wonderful pieces of detail. My favorite was the pellagra story: detoxification rituals (which pre-columbian cultures used to un-fix niacin in corn and avoid pellagra), and then how Goldberger finally traced the cause. But there were a number of others -- the co-evolution of exhaustion hunting with water containers, tracking, and target identification, the unfortunate Tasmanians who *lost fire* and the Inuit who (post an epidemic) lost fishing tridents and kayaks. Some thoughts/criticism:1. Chili in food as an analogy for morality. It starts as an unpleasant necessity, but becomes an acquired taste. 2. Henrich over-eggs the argument. Cultural learning is a tremendous boon. But humans are also smarter than chimps. Henrich makes much of the struggles of fish-out-of water westerners set down in hostile environments. Sure, but let's see how a chimp does when dropped on an ice floe. 3. The augury as a randomization tool argument I just don't buy. It's ingenious (randomization is hard, behavioral biases could be maladaptive) but it's just a bit too neat, and I would want more correlation between the practices where randomization helps and the practice of augury. Henrich refers to some -- but it does not mesh with my understanding of Greek and Roman augury, which seemed to be used all the time for crackpot purposes. (I should ask Tim!).4. If you train up chimps and then test them against human infants, you have my respect. But Henrich also cites many social-psych style experiments that I just generally discount to zero. Perhaps unfair.5.Culture/biology co-evolution is just terrifically compelling (lactose tolerance, shorter large intestines, etc., etc.). Hard to believe it does not translate to cognition, and psychology, with the evolution of color terms in language a terrifically suggestive example. It also could providea compelling explanation for the Flynn effect, and relatedly why getting people incrementally better at Raven matrices has not yielded 10x more Galoises and Ramanujans.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heinrich starts out with the observation that we humans are individually not very impressive in how we function in nature - we are weak and needy in many respects and would have a hard time surviving in nature, despite our large brains and purported intelligence. Yet we dominate the earth and have come up with one ingenuity after another. How? Because of our culture, or how we combine with each other, arrived at through a long process of "cumulative evolution". Culture has both (self-)domesticated us and enabled amazing feats, such as surviving and thriving all over the world. Often through "complex, cultural packages" - illustrated by European explorers and settlers not coping with alien environments and needing help from indigenous people. Who often do not understand their own practices, e.g. for preparing food wrt toxins. Historically, innovation and development have often been lost and have had to be re-learnt from others or re-discovered through trial and error. A key lesson in the final chapter is that we now see farther than others, "not because we stand on the shoulders of giants or are giants ourselves. We stand on the on shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits (p. 323)." Much more details, particularly about the "cumulative, cultural evolution", in the book. Recommended. H/t: Ole Røgeberg
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Wow! The first three chapters are amazing; short and packed full of information and insight. I cannot wait to devour this book.