Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us About Sex, Diet, and How We Live - Brossura

Zuk, Marlene

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0393347923 ISBN 13: 9780393347920

Casa editrice: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2014

Riassunto

We evolved to eat berries rather than bagels, to live in mud huts rather than condos, to sprint barefoot rather than play football—or did we? Are our bodies and brains truly at odds with modern life? Although it may seem as though we have barely had time to shed our hunter-gatherer legacy, biologist Marlene Zuk reveals that the story is not so simple. Popular theories about how our ancestors lived—and why we should emulate them—are often based on speculation, not scientific evidence.Armed with a razor-sharp wit and brilliant, eye-opening research, Zuk takes us to the cutting edge of biology to show that evolution can work much faster than was previously realized, meaning that we are not biologically the same as our caveman ancestors. Contrary to what the glossy magazines would have us believe, we do not enjoy potato chips because they crunch just like the insects our forebears snacked on. And women don’t go into shoe-shopping frenzies because their prehistoric foremothers gathered resources for their clans. As Zuk compellingly argues, such beliefs incorrectly assume that we’re stuck—finished evolving—and have been for tens of thousands of years. She draws on fascinating evidence that examines everything from adults’ ability to drink milk to the texture of our ear wax to show that we’ve actually never stopped evolving. Our nostalgic visions of an ideal evolutionary past in which we ate, lived, and reproduced as we were “meant to” fail to recognize that we were never perfectly suited to our environment. Evolution is about change, and every organism is full of trade-offs.From debunking the caveman diet to unraveling gender stereotypes, Zuk delivers an engrossing analysis of widespread paleofantasies and the scientific evidence that undermines them, all the while broadening our understanding of our origins and what they can really tell us about our present and our future.

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Recensione:

"... presents an entertaining and very plausible challenge to some of the pseudo-scientific myths we have about our evolutionary past..." The Bookseller "Zuk's rebuttals are intelligent, informed and instructive..." Times Higher Education "...her [Zuk's] take on the many controversies and uncertainties surrounding evolution is both wise and measured." The Guardian "...Paleofantasy is a necessary corrective to so much new-age nincompoopery." BBC Focus "...elegant book...Zuk writes with a pleasant dry humour which intermittently sparkles." Literary Review "...this rigorous book is not about whether to eat wheat: it is an entertaining synthesis of the hard science on human evolution." --Summer Books, Nature

L'autore:

Marlene Zuk is a professor of biology at the University of California - Riverside and is the author of Sex on Six Legs.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Data di pubblicazione: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393347923
• ISBN 13: 9780393347920
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 328