How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends by Mark Derr

On November 9, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Science, by Wilfried F. Voss

How the Dog Became the Dog presents domestication of the dog as a biological and cultural process that began in mutual cooperation and has taken a number of radical turns. At the end of the last Ice Age the first dogs emerged with their humans from refuges against the cold.

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The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time by David Sloan Wilson

On September 1, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Wilfried F. Voss

With an ambitious scope that spans biology, sociology, religion, and economics, The Neighborhood Project is a memoir, a practical handbook for improving the quality of life, and an exploration of the big questions long pondered by religious sages, philosophers, and storytellers. Approaching the same questions from an evolutionary perspective shows, as never before, how places define us.

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Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson

On June 23, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Science, by Wilfried F. Voss

In Feathers, biologist Thor Hanson details a sweeping natural history, as feathers have been used to fly, protect, attract, and adorn through time and place. Applying the research of paleontologists, ornithologists, biologists, engineers, and even art historians, Hanson asks: What are feathers? How did they evolve? What do they mean to us?

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The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies – How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

On June 8, 2011, in Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Wilfried F. Voss

In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world’s best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow.

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The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700 (New Approaches to Economic and Social History)

On April 27, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Wilfried F. Voss

Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever before in human history. However it is only recently that historians, economists, human biologists and demographers have linked the changing size, shape and capability of the human body to economic and demographic change.

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Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet by Tim Flannery

On April 22, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Wilfried F. Voss

Beginning at the moment of creation with the Big Bang, Here on Earth explores the evolution of Earth from a galactic cloud of dust and gas to a planet with a metallic core and early signs of life within a billion years of being created. In a compelling narrative, Flannery describes the formation of the Earth’s crust and atmosphere, as well as the transformation of the planet’s oceans from toxic brews of metals (such as iron, copper, and lead) to life-sustaining bodies covering 70 percent of the planet’s surface.

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First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth by Marc Kaufman

On April 11, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Wilfried F. Voss

With a child’s curiosity and a reporter’s skill, Kaufman delivers a concise, thorough, and utterly fascinating summary of the search for life elsewhere in the universe—and what it means for life on Earth. If you’ve ever wondered about life beyond Earth, let Marc Kaufman introduce you to the men and women who are searching for it. His explanations will make the night sky seem more vivid and the very life around you seem more improbable and precious.

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SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed by Martin Nowak and Roger Highfield

On April 9, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Wilfried F. Voss

Nowak and Highfield examine the phenomena of reciprocity, reputation, and reward, explaining how selfless behavior arises naturally from competition; how forgiveness, generosity, and kindness have a mathematical rationale; how companies can be better designed to promote cooperation; and how there is remarkable overlap between the recipe for cooperation that arises from quantitative analysis and the codes of conduct seen in major religions, such as the Golden Rule.

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The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human by V. S. Ramachandran

On January 30, 2011, in Book Reviews, by Wilfried F. Voss

The twentieth was the century of physics, with the grand unified theory its quest and goal. The twenty-first is shaping up as the century of neuroscience, with its quest and goal the reaffirmation of human exceptionalism. Boldly asserting, right off the bat, that Homo sapiens is “no mere ape,” Ramachandran tells us why the day of neuroscience has dawned. The discovery of mirror neurons (see Marco Iacoboni’s exciting Mirroring People, 2008) has made a real science out of psychology, for it gives the study of consciousness and the host of mental states contingent on it something physical to theorize about and experiment with.

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Scientific Study: Conservatives Have Lower IQ

On March 1, 2010, in Neurotica, by Wilfried F. Voss

The more intelligent people are, the more they are willing to engage into something new. Conservatives and religious people, in turn, do have a lower intelligence quotient. Psychologists believe, the phenomena can be explained through an evolution-biological view.

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