Overview

"Do our genes determine our behavior? Do education and environment have any influence at all? Do humans occupy a unique position in evolution? To clarify these provoking questions, the author takes the reader on an ambitious and entertaining journey through a variety of scientific disciplines. In doing so, he creates an image of human evolution that says that our entire individual knowledge is determined - to the smallest detail - by phylogeny. "" ... before shocked humanists discard such radical theses as mere nonsense, they should not completely close their minds to the explanations of a biologist who says that we still know very little about the genetic determination of human behavior and that the invariance of many forms of behavior present in all cultures nourish the suspicion that the determining role of genes is probably far more comprehensive than we have ever dreamed."" Wolfgang Wieser, translated from his review in ""Merkur"" (Sept./Oct. 1999)"

Full Product Details

Author:   Adolf Heschl ,  H. Loserl
Publisher:   Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. KG
Imprint:   Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K
Edition:   Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2002
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.682kg
ISBN:  

9783642086489

ISBN 10:   3642086489
Pages:   355
Publication Date:   01 December 2010
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Nature Explains Nurture.- 1 The Myth of a Wonder of Nature.- 2 Evolutionary Epistemology or the Difficulties of Getting Started.- 3 To Be or Not to Be.- 4 Chance as Necessity.- 5 The Indivisible Individual.- 6 L=C.- 7 The Central Dogma Reformulated.- 8 Learning: Appearances are Deceptive.- 9 Edelman’s Errors.- 10 On the Heritability of Jazzophilia.- 11 A Superfluous Law of Evolution.- 12 The “Wonder” of Language.- 13 Intelligent Sex: A Cognitivist View of Genetic Exchange Processes.- 14 How to Explain Consciousness.- 15 The True Nature of Scientific Revolutions.- 16 “Evolution Has Us in Its Grip”.- 17 The Survival of the Most Intelligent.- 18 The Cultural Struggle of Genes.- 19 Requiem for a Wonder of Nature.- Literature.- Acknowledgement of sources.

Reviews

From the reviews: All knowledge of the individual is located in the genome, argues Heschl. With such a radicality he goes much further than many other researchers like Richard Dawkins, the advocate of the selfish gene. Frankfurter Allgemeine, translated from issue June 17, 1998. We cannot exclude the possibility that Heschl is simply right. Josef H. Reichholf, translated from Psychologie heute (July 1999) I basically agree with Heschl's theses. Manfred Eigen, translated from a personal letter to the author (Nov. 1999) Written by a trained ethologist and genetic epistemologist, and translated from the 1998 German original, The Intelligent Genome highlights how little we know about the genetic determination of human behaviour. ... Although a very intense text, readers of this book may be drawn from various disciplines ... . A rich source of bibliography and widely drawn quotes from famous philosophers and scientists, the book can also be a good research resource and reference book for any library collection. (Harjeet Khanna, Today,s Life Science, Vol. 14 (5), 2002) Burying the myth of the human miracle, the author Adolf Heschl goes beyond any known theories. ... In a clear-cut scientific approach, Heschl claims that intelligence, although individually shaped throughout life, already pre-exists in the genome. ... The author analyses theories of scientists such as Darwin, Lamarck or Weisman, at the same time taking a highly critical look at his own point of view. Following the road of mankind, the reader is taken on both an ambitious and entertaining journey. (Science in Africa, March, 2002)

Alles Wissen des Individuums steckt in dessen Genom, glaubt Heschl. Mit dieser Radikalitat geht er weiter als viele andere Forscher wie Richard Dawkins der Verfechter vom egoistischen Gen. Viele Argumente regen zum Nachdenken an, nicht zuletzt, weil sie immer wieder zum Widerspruch herausfordern. Frankfurter Allgemeine Marktfrauen verwirklichen keinen Erkenntniszuwachs; Nobelpreistrager auch nicht. Nach den radikalen Hypothesen eines Biologen ist Wissensgewinn zufallig und von der genetischen Konstitution abhangig. Lukas Huber, Der Standard Ist nicht, wie Richard Dawkins, unbestreitbar ein Darwinist, einraumte, die Kultur das Besondere am Menschen? Iasst Heschl fragen - und antwortet: Nein und nochmals nein. Thomas Kramar, Die Presse Die Umwelt beeinflusst uns zwar, aber belehren kann sie uns nicht, ist Heschl uberzeugt. Das letzte Wort beim Spiel der Evolution gibt er den Genen, so dass der Gultigkeitsbereich der Darwinschen Evolutionstheorie noch weitaus grundlegender sein soll als bislang angenommen. Claudia Metzger, bild der wissenschaft Nichts entkommt der Biologie, auch der menschliche Geist fallt nicht vom Himmel, sondern ist ganzlich durch das intelligente Genom vorprogrammiert. Das ist eine spannende These, die in ihren theoretischen Konsequenzen bislang noch von niemandem derart radikal verfolgt wurde. Florian Rotzer, Telepolis Vorsicht - das Buch ist keine lassige Bettlekture. Die Aufmerksamkeit des Lesers ist gefordert, auch wenn schwierige Gedankengange oft erstaunlich einleuchtend und klar dargestellt werden. Verband deutscher Biologen Die biologische Evolution funktioniert nach dem einfachen Prinzip der differentiellen Reproduktion: der unterschiedlichen Fortpflanzungsrate von Individuen. Das vorliegende Buch dokumentiert erstmals, dass - und vor allem warum - dieses einfache Prinzip ohne Wenn und Aber auch auf den Menschen anwendbar ist. Bioworld, Schweiz Wahrend die Trennung des Menschen von allen anderen Lebewesen in Hinblick auf die physische Evolution mittlerweile nur noch im amerikanischen Bible Belt verfochten zu werden scheint, ist Heschls Ansatz schwerer zu verdauen. Biotechnologie Heschls Fazit: Denker aller Zeiten finden die unterschiedlichsten Methoden zum Zwecke des Erkenntnisgewinns, ignorieren aber ausnahmslos die nicht unwesentliche Frage, ob der einzelne Mensch uberhaupt die Fahigkeit besitzt, zu wirklich neuen Erkenntnissen zu gelangen. Eben diese Frage beantwortet Heschl mit einem resoluten Nein. Suddeutsche Zeitung Nun, was soll man von solch einem Werk halten? Zunachst die eine Moglichkeit: Eine Ausschliesslichkeitserklarung scheitert ihrem Prinzip nach an der Unwiderlegbarkeit. Die zweite Moglichkeit ware, dass Heschl schlicht und einfach recht hat. Josef Reichholf, Psychologie heute

From the reviews: All knowledge of the individual is located in the genome, argues Heschl. With such a radicality he goes much further than many other researchers like Richard Dawkins, the advocate of the selfish gene. Frankfurter Allgemeine, translated from issue June 17, 1998. We cannot exclude the possibility that Heschl is simply right. Josef H. Reichholf, translated from Psychologie heute (July 1999) I basically agree with Heschl's theses. Manfred Eigen, translated from a personal letter to the author (Nov. 1999) Written by a trained ethologist and genetic epistemologist, and translated from the 1998 German original, The Intelligent Genome highlights how little we know about the genetic determination of human behaviour. ... Although a very intense text, readers of this book may be drawn from various disciplines ... . A rich source of bibliography and widely drawn quotes from famous philosophers and scientists, the book can also be a good research resource and reference book for any library collection. (Harjeet Khanna, Today's Life Science, Vol. 14 (5), 2002) Burying the myth of the human miracle, the author Adolf Heschl goes beyond any known theories. ... In a clear-cut scientific approach, Heschl claims that intelligence, although individually shaped throughout life, already pre-exists in the genome. ... The author analyses theories of scientists such as Darwin, Lamarck or Weisman, at the same time taking a highly critical look at his own point of view. Following the road of mankind, the reader is taken on both an ambitious and entertaining journey. (Science in Africa, March, 2002)

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