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Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Paperback)

by Carl Sagan (Author), Ann Druyan (Author) "Nothing lives forever, in Heaven as it is on Earth ..." (more)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

In a leisurely, lyrical meditation on the roughly four-million-year span since life dawned on Earth, Sagan and Druyan ( Comet ) argue that territoriality, xenophobia, ethnocentrism, occasional outbreeding and a preference for small, semi-isolated groups are elements in a survival strategy common to many species, including Homo sapiens. Yet society's problems, they assert, increasingly demand global solutions and require a dramatic, strategic shift which the authors optimistically believe humankind is capable of achieving. This engaging, humane odyssey offers a stunning refutation of the behavioristic worldview with its mechanistic notion that animals (except for humans) lack conscious awareness. Writing with awe and a command of their material, the husband-wife team cover well-trod terrain while they discuss the evolution of Earth's atmosphere and life forms, the genetic code, the advantages of sexual reproduction. The last third of the book, dealing with chimpanzees, baboons and apes, is the most interesting. Sagan and Druyan find chimps' social life "hauntingly familiar" with its hierarchy, combat, suppression of females and chimps' remarkable ability to communicate through symbols. First serial to Parade.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


From Library Journal

Astronomer Sagan is probably the biggest name in popular science writing, a fact that should assure that his latest book--written with his wife, Druyan--will find a wide audience. Sagan's goal is to explain how luck and natural selection combined to produce human beings after three and a half billion years of life on earth. Human behavior, he stresses, results more from similarities with our animal ancestors than from any unique qualities we may possess. Sagan flounders a bit early on in his effort to explain molecular evolution, but he picks up speed later when the focus shifts to primate behavior. Despite a preference for the overly dramatic phrase at the expense of scientific clarity, the argument is coherent throughout. While this is hardly one of the best books on human evolution, it will likely be very popular, especially in public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/92.
- Eric Hinsdale, Trinity Univ. Lib., San Antonio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

36 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (36 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Have You Ever Wondered Who We Are?, May 12 2004
By Timothy Davis (Pacifica, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are (Paperback)
After I read The Dragons of Eden, I learned that Carl Sagan explored more than cosmology. He also explored evolutionary biology-stimulated by his wife, the biologist Ann Druyan. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a book that Sagan and Druyan wrote together. It is much more scientifically rigorous and sophisticated than The Dragons of Eden, and deals not with the evolution of the tripartite brain, but on the evolution of consciousness itself. Druyan and Sagan write that we are like babies left in a basket on a doorstep, never knowing and always wondering what our ancestry is. For me, the most influential of the book's explorations involve the study of the levels of consciousness in other animals, aside from the human animal. Through study after study, many amusing and all interesting, Druyan and Sagan emphasize that the difference between the consciousness of the human animal and other animals is "a difference of degree rather than kind." Indeed, some of the studies indicate that some of the other animals may have consciousness that surpasses in degree that that of the human animal. The book stresses that we will not understand who we are until we view ourselves as part of a continuum, and the book also explorers the history of human resistance to this idea. One or two of the chapters were too difficult for me to understand as a non-scientist, but I was basically able to understand the book while only skimming the difficult chapters about DNA construction and such. It was nice to know that rigorous science was part of the book. This is one of those books that will change your outlook on the world.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding ourselves..., Feb 15 2003
By Frank Angel (Madrid Spain) - See all my reviews
...and the reasons why we do what we do as humans --that's the basic concept of this book which, as most books written by Sagan, is easy to understand and read.

He starts with the big bang, followed by one cell organism , gradually taking the reader into a tale of how it is that we as a species came to be. It gives plausible explanations of so many of the things that religion cannot explain. Biology, human nature and sociology are explained in a simple but interesting way . It leaves the human species uncovered on just what it is that makes us. Books such as Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors enriched my life. Sagan and Druyan were a great team and I for one miss Carl Sagan and his wise approach in explaining science.

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5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book, Feb 13 2003
By Steve Schroader (Walnut Creek, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I had a fundamentalist upbringing and even was a missionary for a couple of years. I'm now 49. Twenty years ago the Cosmos TV series changed my life. I've since read all of Sagan's books. While all are good, I think the most valuable is Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and the second most valuable is Demon Haunted World. Also, the photograph of earth taken by the Voyager spacecraft from beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, in Chapter 1 of Pale Blue Dot, is something everyone should see.

All my life I wondered why we behave the way we do and why things are the way they are. Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is the most helpful thing I have found.

For me, parts of the first third of the book were a little dry, but it became a livelier read after that.

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 		 Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars enlightening
Sagan/Druyan deconstruct the Western Chrisitan Myth of Intrinsic Human superiority over their mammal kinfolk. Read more
Published on Jun 2 2002 by Thomas D. Gulch

5.0 out of 5 stars "We are all kin"
Sagan and Druyan have created a masterwork in _Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors_. Written for the layperson, they clearly explain the origins and evolution of life on the... Read more
Published on Feb 15 2002 by doc peterson

5.0 out of 5 stars lovely book
Well, Bob, I started to lose mine as I turned thirty, but that's just the hair on my head. I've been accumulating body hair all my adult life; the older I get, the more I resemble... Read more
Published on Oct 3 2001

1.0 out of 5 stars How does this prove we came from apes?
If we evolved from apes then shouldn't our bodies be completely covered with hair? You'd think they should, but no. Why did we lose our hair then, what benefit would that be? Read more
Published on Aug 5 2001 by Bob Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Helps place us in perspective
This book shows how science, well-written, can be so much more rewarding and marvelous than the pseudoscientific creationist garbage that the fundametalist zealots are trying to... Read more
Published on Jun 30 2001 by Sorek

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my all-time favorite books!
I love Carl Sagan's books and this one is my very favorite. Fascinating.
Published on Jun 13 2001 by Hallie Kline

5.0 out of 5 stars simply great
Carl Sagan is one of the greates minds of the 20th century. He was a man passionate about science and life, and showed it in his books. Read more
Published on May 18 2001 by Forrest B. Crock

5.0 out of 5 stars One for my book shelf
I read through some of the other reviews and the negative ones are correct in that this is not a text book. Read more
Published on April 8 2001 by William F Binder

2.0 out of 5 stars Shadows of forgotten ancestors
Another book on evolution by a populist author not really for the serious Biology student. Read Origin of the species for the real thing Or the Beak of the Finch for good research... Read more
Published on Feb 20 2001 by paul Wadsley

2.0 out of 5 stars Shadows of forgotten ancestors
Another book on evolution by a populist author not really for the serious Biology studen. nRead Origin of the species for the real thing Or the Beak of the Finch for good reseach... Read more
Published on Feb 20 2001 by paul Wadsley

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