Overview

The Evolution of Human Cleverness presents a unique introduction to the way human cognitive abilities have evolved. The book comprises a series of mini-essays on distinct topics in which technical terms are simplified, considering how humans made the long journey from our ape-like ancestors to become capable of higher-level reasoning and problem solving. All the topics are cross-linked, allowing the reader to dip in and out, but certain key concepts run through the underlying reasoning. Chiefly, these are adaptation and selection, the distinction between ultimate and proximate causes of behaviour, gene–culture co-evolution, and domain-general versus domain-specific cognitive processes. The book should help the reader draw lessons for the human species as a whole, especially in view of the environmental threats to its own existence. Entries have been carefully crafted to cut through scientific jargon, providing bite-sized and digestible chunks of knowledge, making the topic accessible for students and lay readers alike. The author draws on research from diverse fields including Psychology, Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology, and Neuroscience to provide an unbiased account of the field, making it an ideal text for students of all levels.

Full Product Details

Author:   Richard Hallam
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.540kg
ISBN:  

9780367761035

ISBN 10:   0367761033
Pages:   268
Publication Date:   02 May 2022
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Part 1: Introduction. 1. Aims. 2. Overview. Part 2: Essential themes. 3. Proximate and ultimate causes. 4. Adaptation and selection. 5. Nature, nurture, and culture. 6. Human uniqueness. 7. Reasoning about the past. 8. Is cleverness genetic?. 9. Psychologies: Theories and methods. Part 3: Hominin ancestors. 10. Hominin and primate relatives. 11. Ancestral hominins. 12. Bipedalism. 13. Early Homo. 14. Late Homo. 15. Homo floresiensis. 16. Who or what is Homo sapiens?. 17. How clever were Neanderthals?. 18. Behavioural modernity. 19. Hominin life history. 20. Family structure, pair bonding, and communal breeding. Part 4: Selection and transmission of traits. 21. Genetic inheritance. 22. Sexual selection. 23. Group selection. 24. Exaptation. 25. Non-selectionist processes. 26. Gene/culture co-evolution. 27. Genes and hominin evolution. 28 The heritability of intelligence and cleverness. Part 5: Contentious theoretical issues. 29. Personal and sub-personal explanations. 30. Intentionality. 31. Mentalism in evolutionary explanation. 32. Cognitive science vs behavioural theory. 33. Representation. 34. Modularity. 35. Two systems for controlling behaviour?. 36. Recursion. 37. The meaning of signs. Part 6: Comparing ourselves with other primates. 38. Differences between ape and human communication. 39. Primate gestures and the evolution of language. 40. Perspective-taking in non-human primates. 41. Social learning in non-human primates. 42. Understanding the physical world. 43. Pro-social behaviour and cooperation in non-human primates. 44. Signing chimpanzees. 45. Home-reared chimpanzees. 46. Primate intelligence. Part 7: How did hominins evolve socially?. 47. Self-awareness and identity. 48. Social learning: Imitation. 49. The social brain hypothesis. 50. Cooperation. 51. Social reciprocity. 52. Perspective-taking in hominins. 53. Displaced reference and pretend play. 54. Self-domestication. Part 8: The brain. 55. Brain size and early development. 56. Brain evolution: Structure and function. 57. Handedness. 58. Mirror neuron system. Part 9: Learning from archaeology. 59. Models in cognitive archaeology. 60. What can stone-tools tell us?. 61. Fire. Part 10: Language. 62. The evolution of symbols. 63. Protolanguage. 64. Origins of language: fossil and DNA evidence. 65. Origins of language: As communication. 66. Origins of language: As faculty. Part 11: . Becoming complex and clever. 67. Evolution of consciousness. 68. The social self. 69. Memory: Living in time. 70. Working memory. 71. Meta-cognition. 72. Abstraction and analogy. 73. Imagination and counterfactual thought. 74. Agency: Getting it all together. 75. The evolution of reasoning. 76. Intelligence vs. applied intelligence. 77. Framing behaviour functionally. Part 12: Putting it all together. 78. The evolution of cleverness: Rival accounts. 79. Responding to evolution science. 80. Infelicities and stupidity. 81. Acting on evolution science. References.

Reviews

'Prof. Hallam has written a unique and most interesting book on evolution. What is unique about this book is the psychological perspective applied to help us understand modern human evolution. In addition to traditional genetic and anatomical topics Hallam helps us understand how human evolution has been shaped by social and psychological processes from early hominins to the present. His introduction to the human characteristic of cleverness and its development in the context of multiple evolutionary processes is both unique and brilliant. The text consists of 81 relatively brief and interesting sections on topics that can be read in nearly any order to form a meaningful Gestalt or mosaic without over-taxing the reader’s ability to attend, comprehend, or focus. The book is most informative and is a pleasure to read without requiring any special knowledge or background.' Glenn Shean, PhD, Professor of Psychology Emeritus, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA 'The book is a panoramic and comprehensive survey of contemporary knowledge and debate on the subject of the evolution of human cleverness. Its content is structured in encyclopaedic fashion, with entries covering the topic from multiple perspectives. The style is lucid and concise, guiding the reader in masterly fashion through a complex maze of theory, fact, and speculation. The book offers the reader a rich, worthwhile, and illuminating voyage.' Ariel Stravynski, Professeur Honoraire, Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Canada 'Ever wonder what makes humans so clever? Read this book and you’ll find out. It tells the evolutionary story of how our abilities emerge, what they enable us to do and how our cleverness is now impacting the whole planet. The question is: Can we use our cleverness to solve the problems we have created for ourselves in time to preserve our fragile world? Richard Hallam's book details the tools we have at our disposal, we just need to use them. A marvellous book, highly recommended.' Freddy Jackson Brown, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, North Bristol NHS Trust Associate Fellow, Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal, and Research, University of Warwick 'As in his other books, Hallam’s talent is in making clear how things are complex. This is not to say that we are missing the juice of the matter, or that the picture is confused: On the contrary, in this book one can find clearly set out strong proposals concerning all we can reasonably know about human cleverness but, fortunately, one can also find all we don’t know about it, and all we can’t probably know.' Adriano Bugliani, PhD, Assistant Professor, History of Philosophy, University of Firenze, Italy

Prof. Hallam has written a unique and most interesting book on evolution. What is unique about this book is the psychological perspective applied to help us understand modern human evolution. In addition to traditional genetic and anatomical topics Hallam helps us understand how human evolution has been shaped by social and psychological processes from early hominins to the present. His introduction to the human characteristic of cleverness and its development in the context of multiple evolutionary processes is both unique and brilliant. The text consists of 81 relatively brief and interesting sections on topics that can be read in nearly any order to form a meaningful Gestalt or mosaic without over-taxing the reader's ability to attend, comprehend, or focus. The book is most informative and is a pleasure to read without requiring any special knowledge or background. Glenn Shean, Ph.D Professor of Psychology Emeritus College of William and Mary Williamsburg, VA, USA The book is a panoramic and comprehensive survey of contemporary knowledge and debate on the subject of the evolution of human cleverness. Its content is structured in encyclopaedic fashion, with entries covering the topic from multiple perspectives. The style is lucid and concise, guiding the reader in masterly fashion through a complex maze of theory, fact and speculation. The book offers the reader a rich, worthwhile and illuminating voyage. Ariel Stravynski Professeur Honoraire, Departement de Psychologie, Universite de Montreal, Canada Ever wonder what makes humans so clever? Read this book and you'll find out. It tells the evolutionary story of how our abilities emerge, what they enable us to do and how our cleverness is now impacting the whole planet. The question is: Can we use our cleverness to solve the problems we have created for ourselves in time to preserve our fragile world? Richard Hallam's book details the tools we have at our disposal, we just need to use them. A marvellous book, highly recommended. Freddy Jackson Brown Consultant Clinical Psychologist, North Bristol NHS Trust Associate Fellow, Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal, and Research, University of Warwick. As in his other books, Hallam's talent is in making clear how things are complex. This is not to say that we are missing the juice of the matter, or that the picture is confused: On the contrary, in this book one can find clearly set out strong proposals concerning all we can reasonably know about human cleverness but, fortunately, one can also find all we don't know about it, and all we can't probably know. Adriano Bugliani, PhD Assistant Professor, History of Philosophy University of Firenze, Italy Clinical Psychologist/Psychotherapist

'Prof. Hallam has written a unique and most interesting book on evolution. What is unique about this book is the psychological perspective applied to help us understand modern human evolution. In addition to traditional genetic and anatomical topics Hallam helps us understand how human evolution has been shaped by social and psychological processes from early hominins to the present. His introduction to the human characteristic of cleverness and its development in the context of multiple evolutionary processes is both unique and brilliant. The text consists of 81 relatively brief and interesting sections on topics that can be read in nearly any order to form a meaningful Gestalt or mosaic without over-taxing the reader's ability to attend, comprehend, or focus. The book is most informative and is a pleasure to read without requiring any special knowledge or background.' Glenn Shean, PhD, Professor of Psychology Emeritus, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA 'The book is a panoramic and comprehensive survey of contemporary knowledge and debate on the subject of the evolution of human cleverness. Its content is structured in encyclopaedic fashion, with entries covering the topic from multiple perspectives. The style is lucid and concise, guiding the reader in masterly fashion through a complex maze of theory, fact, and speculation. The book offers the reader a rich, worthwhile, and illuminating voyage.' Ariel Stravynski, Professeur Honoraire, Departement de Psychologie, Universite de Montreal, Canada 'Ever wonder what makes humans so clever? Read this book and you'll find out. It tells the evolutionary story of how our abilities emerge, what they enable us to do and how our cleverness is now impacting the whole planet. The question is: Can we use our cleverness to solve the problems we have created for ourselves in time to preserve our fragile world? Richard Hallam's book details the tools we have at our disposal, we just need to use them. A marvellous book, highly recommended.' Freddy Jackson Brown, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, North Bristol NHS Trust Associate Fellow, Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal, and Research, University of Warwick 'As in his other books, Hallam's talent is in making clear how things are complex. This is not to say that we are missing the juice of the matter, or that the picture is confused: On the contrary, in this book one can find clearly set out strong proposals concerning all we can reasonably know about human cleverness but, fortunately, one can also find all we don't know about it, and all we can't probably know.' Adriano Bugliani, PhD, Assistant Professor, History of Philosophy, University of Firenze, Italy

Author Information

Richard Hallam worked as a clinical psychologist, researcher, and lecturer until 2006, mainly in the National Health Service and at University College London and the University of East London. Since then, he has worked independently as a writer, researcher, and therapist.

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