The Intelligent Genome : On the Origin of the Human Mind by Mutation and Selection

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)__ Front Matter....Pages 1-12 Introduction: Nature Explains Nurture....Pages 13-20 The Myth of a Wonder of Nature....Pages 21-26 Evolutionary Epistemology or the Difficulties of Getting Started....Pages 27-36 To Be or Not to Be....Pages 37-45 Chance as Necessity....Pages 46-50 The Indivisible Individual....Pages 51-58 L = C....Pages 59-67 The Central Dogma Reformulated....Pages 68-77 Learning: Appearances Are Deceptive....Pages 78-96 Edelman’s Errors....Pages 97-109 On the Heritability of Jazzophilia....Pages 110-127 A Superfluous Law of Evolution....Pages 128-148 The “Wonder” of Language....Pages 149-174 Intelligent Sex: A Cognitivist View of Genetic Exchange Processes....Pages 175-210 How to Explain Consciousness....Pages 211-233 The True Nature of Scientific Discoveries....Pages 234-259 “Evolution Has Us in Its Grip”....Pages 260-273 The Survival of the Most Intelligent....Pages 274-295 The Cultural Struggle of Genes....Pages 296-303 Requiem for a Wonder of Nature....Pages 304-315 Back Matter....Pages 316-362

Do our genes determine our behavior? 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 argues that our entire individual knowledge is determined - to the smallest detail - by phylogeny. A provoking and controversial analysis of the theory of our inability to learn something new and of the extent to which our behavior is determined by our genes.