The Runaway Brain: The Evolution Of Human Uniqueness - Hardcover

Wills, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465031315 ISBN 13: 9780465031313

Publisher: Basic Books, 1993

Synopsis

Traces the evolution of the human brain in a most pleasing and understandable manner. Wills manages to organize an immense amount of detail and theory into an easy flowing and interesting scientific detective story. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Wills is professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego.

Reviews

Wills begins this superb, detailed, lucid survey of current controversies over human origins by debunking the popular theory that all human beings share a common ancestry rooted in a particular kind of DNA from a "mitochondrial Eve" who lived in Africa some 200,000 years ago. Next, he applies new findings from molecular genetics and fossil digs to clarify the two competing models of human evolution: the "politically correct" Noah's Ark model, which holds that modern humans arose relatively recently in Africa and fanned out through the Old World, replacing less advanced hominids; and the multiple-origins model, according to which our ancestors made the transition to full humanity more than once, in different parts of the planet. A biologist at UC San Diego, Wills suggests that Homo sapiens is caught up in a process of "runaway brain evolution," the result of a feedback loop between genes and the environment, which has transformed our brains into "sponges for knowledge," giving human evolution the appearance of progress and directionality. Illustrated. First serial to Discover; Library of Science main selection.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Remember the ``mitochondrial Eve'' (popularly interpreted to mean that we're all descended from an African mom upward of 200,000 years ago)? Remember Carleton Coon and the independent origin of the races of mankind? These are among the new and older ideas revisited in this wide-ranging review by Wills (Biology/UC San Diego; Exons, Introns, and Talking Genes, 1991). Essentially, Wills agrees with Stephen Jay Gould and others that evolution doesn't mean progress and hasn't stopped with Homo sapiens. What appears to be progress in our case, he says, is not a case of the uniqueness of human evolution, but of the evolution of human uniqueness. This has come about by interactions between the genome and the cultural milieu that have led to the feedback phenomenon of the ``runaway brain.'' Contributing factors include the narrowness of the birth canal, which ushers babies into the world at an immature stage, and personal interactions that facilitate the rapid growth and expansion of the brain, with its diverse systems and capabilities. To arrive at these conclusions, Wills summarizes the paleontological evidence, including the personae and controversies: He offers the corrective that the mitochondrial Eve might be much older and have had numerous companions who passed on their nuclear (as opposed to mitochondrial genes); he speculates that Homo erectus might have spread across the continents with all its apparatus in place to evolve to sapiens. Wills undergirds this argument with the latest findings from molecular genetics about the roles of duplicate genes and mutations with ``potential.'' Along the way, he finds time to discuss the origin of language, the brains of idiot savants (now called ``individuals with savant syndrome''), and the potential for human self- and planetary destruction. An impressive compendium of data and theories of human evolution, along with the author's own speculations--sure to trigger controversy in a field known for contention. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465031315
• ISBN 13: 9780465031313
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384