The Secret of Our Success

Joseph Henrich is professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He also holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution at the University of British Columbia, where he is a professor in the departments of psychology and economics. He is the coauthor of Why Humans Cooperate and the coeditor of Experimenting with Social Norms.

出版者:Princeton University Press

作者:Joseph Henrich

页数:464

出版时间:2015-10

价格:USD 29.95

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780691166858

图书标签:人类学社会学进化文化英文原版辉格推荐自我成长辉总推荐

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. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many cultural innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Later on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing, while also creating the institutions that continue to alter our motivations and perceptions. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory.

Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, The Secret of Our Success explores how the evolution of both our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species’ immense success and the origins of human uniqueness.

读后感

把这本书推荐给我的人说，这是一本神书，你一定要看。于是我看了，合上书惊叹，真神啊~ 书名看起来有点中二，但讲的还真是这个事儿，也即，人类成功统治地球的秘密，文化如何驱动我们成功？ 它的结论是，我们人类现在几乎占领全球，发展出了丰富的文化，是因为文化演进和生物演...

本书作者亨里奇在书中所倡导的理论叫做：文化-遗传协同演化，或者叫做双重遗传理论（Dual inheritance theory，简称DIT），即基因与文化的共同演化作用，造就了我们“人类成功统治地球”。 要评价这样的理论，我们首先得从社会科学与演化生物学两方面着手，看看他们在各自的理...  

用户评价

挺多新奇有趣的观点，生物进化不仅是自然的选择，更是文化的影响。人并没有比猩猩聪明，但因为是cultural species，有知识经验的传递和延续，懂得合作与分工。足以见得文化的力量和魅力。最后总结的第七点又讲到不同社会有不同文化习惯，强硬照搬植入外来文化产物很多时候不一定适合。。这也是我毕业论文的观点：）。

用几句话总结就是：人类智能因为数据量太大，物理脑容量不够，所以演化出了把数据都放云端（文化），自己只带个下载器（学习能力）的做法。然而这个下载器的算法过于heuristic，导致经常出各种BUG……

用几句话总结就是：人类智能因为数据量太大，物理脑容量不够，所以演化出了把数据都放云端（文化），自己只带个下载器（学习能力）的做法。然而这个下载器的算法过于heuristic，导致经常出各种BUG……

理论有启发。但举的例子总觉得似乎有点牵强，比如什么“神秘的部落占卜仪式是为了随机化狩猎地区进化出来的”，这种大胆功能主义解释不是特别敢信。

挺多新奇有趣的观点，生物进化不仅是自然的选择，更是文化的影响。人并没有比猩猩聪明，但因为是cultural species，有知识经验的传递和延续，懂得合作与分工。足以见得文化的力量和魅力。最后总结的第七点又讲到不同社会有不同文化习惯，强硬照搬植入外来文化产物很多时候不一定适合。。这也是我毕业论文的观点：）。