"Fifty years ago, a troop of Japanese macaques was observed washing sandy sweet potatoes in a stream, sending ripples through the fields of ethnology, comparative psychology, and cultural anthropology. The issue of animal culture has been hotly debated ever since. Now Kevin Laland and Bennett Galef have gathered key voices in the often rancorous debate to summarize the views along the continuum from 'Culture? Of course!' to 'Culture? Of course not!' The result is essential reading for anyone interested in the validity of animal culture, and what it might say about our own." -- Book jacket.
Morris looks closely at the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living.This study concerns the city dweller. Morris finds remarkable similarities with captive zoo animals and looks closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living.
On the basis of evolutionary and behavioral biology, neuroscience and anthropology, this book investigates to which extent it is possible to reconstruct the evolution of nervous systems and brains as well as of mental-cognitive abilities, in short “intelligence”, and to which extent we can correlate the one with the other. One central question is, whether or not abilities exist that make humans truly unique, or whether the evolution of the human mind was a gradual process. Exactly which neural features make animals and humans intelligent and creative? Is it absolute or relative brain size or the size of “intelligence centers” inside the brains, the number of nerve cells inside the brain in total or in such “intelligence centers” decisive for the degree of intelligence, of mind and eventually consciousness? Which are the driving forces behind these processes? Here, many different answers exist.^ For some experts the driving force for brains and minds are the conditions for biological survival: the more complex these conditions, the more effective need to be sense organs, nervous systems and brains, and the stronger is the tendency to an increase in learning abilities, behavioral flexibility and innovation power of animals. This is the ecological intellicence hypothesis. Other authors believe that the true driving force is the challenge from social life of an animal: the more complex the social conditions, the more sophisticated are abilities such as social learning, imitation, empathy, knowledge transfer, consciousness and the development of a theory of mind and meta-cognition. This, again, needs progressive changes inside the brains. This is the social intelligence hypothesis. Again other authors distinguish physical intelligence as a third form of cognitive functions mostly related to tool use, tool fabrication and understanding of the principles of how things work.^ Finally, some experts believe that the decisive factor in the evolution of brains and minds consisted in an increase in the speed and efficacy of information processing in cognitive brain centers. This is the general intelligence or information processing hypothesis. It is discussed, which of these hypotheses is the most convincing one. At its end, the book deals with the eminent question of whether we can arrive at a naturalistic concept of mind and consciousness. Is it possible to explain mind and intelligence within the framework of the natural science, or do mind and intelligence as found in humans, transcend nature?
"This book was developed in part to sustain the legacy of Arthur W. Combs, but also to introduce new generations to matters of consequence for their own lives. It contains a sampling of Art's writings, highlighting contributions he and his collaborators made in both theoretical and applied areas"--P. xi.
The foundations of ethology by Konrad Z. Lorenz | Literally Just Books
