Liars Lovers And Heroes C [Hardcover]

 

 

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This is a great book, that gives a solid argument against evolutionary psychology's rigid and rapidly outdated theorised argument that our genes determine our nature.
Liars, Lovers, and Heroes and the discipline that it adheres to - Cultural Biology, explains that culture is a precursor to our evolution tract, that at times can go against evolutionary determinism. In the sense that our brains build the determined path to evolve. That we are not essentially hard-wired with mental capabilities, nor can we sustain on primitive gene like impulses. The authors Steven Quartz, Terrence Sejnowski explain, human adaptation is linked to brain chemistry; that if we lose a limb, or other body function, our brain resources other parts of the body to compensate. That brain damage is far more prevalent in our society, that leads to cultural problems, such as murder, murderous cults and even mass hysteria. Which is important to understand, that evolutionary psychology falls short in explaining the details, which are the most important in our human biology.

Liars, Lovers, and Heroes reveals the hypocrisy and the inconstancy of Evolutionary Psychology's gender differences, especially the ever changing cultural pressures that confront us. Why is cultural genital mutilation so highly valued in countries consumed with cultural identification? Chapter 4 explains the problem with relying on evolutionary psychology's connection that cultural identity lies within reproductive desires. That if clitoris removal occurs, it is done without any genetic purpose - that its a purely a cultural restraint against women, which could be argued enforced by religious dominance in cultural behaviour. How religious/cultural motivated ceremony's (such as clitoral removal) can be justified using evolutionary psychology logic,is something that evolutionary psychology must be struggling to answer, since according to evolutionary psychology theory, that all our actions are based on replicating our genes.

The authors go on in later chapters, and explain the complex connection that culture and cultural identity have huge impacts of how we define our existence. As the brain is constantly up dating, and renewing thoughts an actions, and adapting to new perceptions. Steven Quartz, Terrence Sejnowski , also go on to explain the aggression in humans, is not always a need to exercise superiority over other humans from a genetic or competitive instinct. Which is highly dangerous for evolutionary psychology to make assumption's that most "male" aggressive traits are based on genetic impulses. Liars, Lovers, and Heroes, explains that babies act more aggressively at a more rapid rate, than adults. Although not as physically devastating as a full grown adult, Cultural Biology dismiss the notion that enhanced aggression is solely a male testosterone trait.

The end chapters and the afterword (which was written after September 11), reveals some fascinating incite into eugenics and its impact of industrialised society. That the negative of eugenics, has lead to presumption of intellectual capabilities - by using simplistic IQ tests. According to the authors, this has lead to the expectation that our society has inherited, and praised, racist, class and intellectual divisions. To insure industrial productively. Not to mention huge health problems, under the pretext, that as humans we continue to learn; that our minds are not meant for mundane, or tedious work practises. As eugenics suggested, some were born with it, and some weren't. Incredible backward thinking, yet still with us. And dismissed appropriately within the book

The afterword which was written a month after September 11. Which was fascinating and insightful, even though it was written so soon after that tragedy.
The authors expressed that alienation, and cultural isolation can lead to mental breakdown, that leads to identifying with extremist, and destructive, self destructive conformist views. That class and educational status had nothing essentially to do with the profile of the hijackers. Which is to say that our culture now is creating even more isolation aspects, and that is transcending over class, and educational so called superiority. Considering that one of some of the hijackers when middle class, and well educated.

I recommend Liars, Lovers, and Heroes, to anyone who is interested in cultural biology, and brain science.

Liars, Lovers and heroes
(What the new brain science reveals about how we become who we are)
:: Speaks in very professional sounding voice::
This book reviewed nature vs. nurture and how evolution and genes may predispose us to a certain personality. It discussed how enormously complex the connections between genes and behavior that make humans what they are.
:: Cuts the crap and talks in real voice::
I would not recommend this book to anyone. The title leads us to believe that this would be a really interesting book full of great tips on how to improve our personality and what we are doing wrong that makes us a liar and not a lover or a hero.
The truth is, this book had almost nothing to do with human personalities and more to do with responses mice had to flashing light patterns or why a fly would turn left or right when it sensed danger. This very educational, and yellow book, was set up so that each chapter had an unnecessarily long paragraph at the beginning explaining what it was about to explain, even though it could have been summed up in two to three sentences. There were also lots of unneeded metaphors added to these paragraphs that seemed to me like they were put in just to make the author sound more clever or for the book about nothing to seem really long and important. (I¡¯ve written many essays that were made by taking one paragraph and turning it into two pages. I know filler when I see it, which is why I should get back to the point¡)
My brain is like a Swiss army knife? A collection of special gadgets? Replete with hundreds of metal corkscrews and cognitive tweezers? DUH! I just wasted a whole minute reading a paragraph with sentence after sentence telling me how my brain was like a Swiss army knife. Leave that to a poetry book man, not a scientific one.
¡°Francis Crick¡¯s intuition told him that the connections between neurons were a key to understanding the brain.¡± Good job genius. That wasn¡¯t your intuition. It¡¯s called common sense.
This book must be good for what I call math-people. They are really book smart and have great memories but lack any sort of common sense. This book is basically pointing out common sense theories about the brain and the justifying them. Then giving elaborate stories about various scientists¡¯ lives and how they experienced the result of whatever brain process they were discussing it the chapter.
This book had many good ideas about what could possibly be causing this reaction or that reaction. It had examples of a few studies that have been tested on specific things like subconscious pattern-remembering but a lot of it was a bunch of ¡°what ifs¡± and ¡°it could bes.¡± I found myself wanting to skip over many parts because it would explain the same idea more then once. Most of What they were saying I had heard before and didn¡¯t learn a lot of new stuff. Also, a lot of their ideas I didn¡¯t completely agree with.
I¡¯m going to give you an example of a chapter in this book. Chapter three ¡°how to make a human¡±
It starts out comparing a brain to a computer. WOW! GOSH MR.PHD QUARTS, I¡¯VE NEVER THOUGH OF IT THAT WAY! (This analogy takes five pages of obvious statements about the similarity between computers and brains.) Then it goes into the similarity between us and chimps. (This takes two pages)It does though, give an interesting story about how a family raised a chimp along side their son and the son started to act more like a chimp than the chimp acted like a human. As for example, the 17 month old son would give the chimpanzee-food-call when hungry instead of simply asking for food.
This, also, is mostly obvious because an intelligent animal can always be trained to act less intelligent than it actually is, but a stupid animal can never be trained to act smart.
At this point I was wondering how any of this has to do with making a human let alone a liar, lover or hero. Fortunately though, I have figured out that most of this book really doesn¡¯t have much to do with anything but I keep reading for the grade.
If you were to skim through the next sub chapter you would come across scientists trying out the idea that neurons might actually have blueprints inside of them that tell them exactly what to do like this is some new discovery. ::Bangs head against the wall in pursuit of figuring out how these guys managed to get PhDs:: I¡¯m going to give you guys a hint. Listen closely now. IT¡¯S CALLED DNA. Even Mrs. Sautter knows that, don¡¯t cha Mrs. Sautter? Maybe they should have taken your class. This book was printed in 2002 and they hardly even talk about DNA having much to do with it besides how similar ours is with monkeys.
I¡¯m going to stop going through the chapter now because I think you have a good enough idea of what this book consists of. Also for the reason that this book report is already a page too long. Anyway, I hope I get a good grade on this¡ Even though the book deserves an F.
:: this book has been reviewed by the critic Hannah Scott ::

I like this book a lot, but it isn't really what I was looking for exactly. I was looking for a 255 level college course book and got a 104 level college course book. The book seems to never really talk about liars, lovers or heroes, but it does catch me up on lots of unknown and interesting brain studies and psychological studies that seem to show a small window into the brain as an oddly wired organ.

The author should delete the first introductory chapter as fluff and shallowness, but then they probably didn't have a say in the name of the book. The publish must have picked it to try and sell it with the bright yellow cover ? Anyway, the nuggets of info are pretty good and some of the witty sentences are great. Some not so great, but not too bad for two PHDs trying to write.
*smile

Hopefully their next brain book will be more edible and chewy and harder to read. I like my brain to work hard ok ! *grin

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2.0 out of 5 stars Unpersuasive and Illogical
These guys have the unintended effect of bolstering their enemies' credibility. If something can be damned by weak praise, so also can it be praised by weak damning. Read more

Published on Feb 10 2003

2.0 out of 5 stars bland and unconvincing
I had really hoped to find a convincing argument for what has been called "the West Pole", the connectionist argument against evolutionary psychology. Read more

Published on Jan 21 2003 by Mike Garrison

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting but too superficial
I would have found this book far more satisfying if the authors had delved into their own research in more detail and didnt try to relate a few (fascinating) findings from brain... Read more

Published on Jan 1 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!
One of the better non-fiction books I've read in years. Aimed at the gerneral science reader, this book does for Brain evolution and function what "The God Particle" did... Read more

Published on Dec 16 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Biology replaces Evolutionary Psychology
The authors use the new brain science, which understands how experience and environment interact developmentally with genetics, to replace 20th century Evolutionary Psychology... Read more

Published on Dec 14 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on the subject
This book is a very well written, reasonably exaustive eposition on the state of the art on brain sciences, combining history, evolution science and neuroscience. Read more

Published on Dec 7 2002 by Ventura Angelo

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic integration of science and insight
Unlike the (typical) proponents of evolutionary psychology, Quartz and Sejnowski have carefully constructed plausible hypotheses based on recent evidence regarding brain function... Read more

Published on Nov 21 2002 by tophe

5.0 out of 5 stars It will change the way you think about your mind
This book has so far been the most insightful look into the evolution of the human mind I've ever encountered. Read more

Published on Nov 19 2002 by Armando Pena

5.0 out of 5 stars New insights into the human condition
This excellent new book tackles some of the oldest and most important questions about what it means to be human--who we are and how we came to be the way we are. Read more

Published on Nov 5 2002 by Robert Adler

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read!
This book was a real eye opener. I had read a bunch of evolutionary psychology books and thought they were on to something, then this book exposed all the gaps in that approach... Read more

Published on Oct 12 2002

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