An edition of The Accidental Species (2013)

Accidental Species

Misunderstandings of Human Evolution

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Accidental Species
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Last edited by ImportBot
June 18, 2022 | History
An edition of The Accidental Species (2013)

Accidental Species

Misunderstandings of Human Evolution

  • 4.00 ·
  • 1 Rating
  • 3 Want to read
  • 0 Currently reading
  • 2 Have read

The idea of a missing link between humanity and our animal ancestors predates evolution and popular science and actually has religious roots in the deist concept of the Great Chain of Being. Yet, the metaphor has lodged itself in the contemporary imagination, and new fossil discoveries are often hailed in headlines as revealing the elusive transitional step, the moment when we stopped being "animal" and started being "human." In The Accidental Species, Henry Gee, longtime paleontology editor at Nature, takes aim at this misleading notion, arguing that it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how evolution works and, when applied to the evolution of our own species, supports mistaken ideas about our own place in the universe. Gee presents a robust and stark challenge to our tendency to see ourselves as the acme of creation. Far from being a quirk of religious fundamentalism, human exceptionalism, Gee argues, is an error that also infects scientific thought. Touring the many features of human beings that have recurrently been used to distinguish us from the rest of the animal world, Gee shows that our evolutionary outcome is one possibility among many, one that owes more to chance than to an organized progression to supremacy. He starts with bipedality, which he shows could have arisen entirely by accident, as a by-product of sexual selection, moves on to technology, large brain size, intelligence, language, and, finally, sentience. He reveals each of these attributes to be alive and well throughout the animal world -- they are not, indeed, unique to our species. The Accidental Species combines Gee's firsthand experience on the editorial side of many incredible paleontological findings with healthy skepticism and humor to create a book that aims to overturn popular thinking on human evolution—the key is not what's missing, but how we're linked. - Publisher.

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Language
English

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: La specie imprevista
La specie imprevista: Fraintendimenti sull'evoluzione umana
2016, Il Mulino
Paperback in Italian
Cover of: The Accidental Species
The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution
Apr 29, 2015, University of Chicago Press
paperback
Cover of: The Accidental Species
The Accidental Species: misunderstandings of human evolution
2013, University of Chicago Press
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Accidental Species
Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution
2013, University of Chicago Press
in English

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Book Details


Classifications

Library of Congress
GN281

The Physical Object

Pagination
232

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL38364000M
ISBN 13
9780226044989

Source records

Better World Books record

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June 18, 2022 Created by ImportBot Imported from Better World Books record