Combining humane sensibility with commonsense, wisdom, knowledge, wit, and sheer intelligence, David Barash’s writing is a tonic for the mind.
— Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion
Natural Selections
Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars, and Other Realities of Evolution
Is consciousness simply the product of neurons firing in the brain or does it imply a human soul? If we are largely a product of our genes, can free will exist? Why do so many people turn their backs on rationality? As the secrets of the human genome are revealed, science, philosophy, and religion struggle for supremacy on the battlefield of ideas.
Never wittier than when confronted with the most serious among the “great questions,” David Barash here decodes the contentious debates on intelligent design, gender differences, the conflict between cultural and biological evolution, and the meaning of life. No mere debunker, he offers an optimistic view of human potential: as a self-identified “evolutionary existentialist” he opposes the “tyranny of the natural”—just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean it’s good for you (think typhoid and tsunamis). We may be the products of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, but as conscious beings we can—and should—make ethical choices.
If the 20th century was the Atomic Age, the 21st century will be known as the “Age of the Genome.” Incisive and engaging, Natural Selections is an indispensable tour of evolutionary biology for our times.
Ebook
- ISBN
- 9781934137246
Hardcover
- ISBN
- 9781934137055
David P. Barash is Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of over thirty books, including Natural Selections: Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars, and Other Realities of Evolution. He has also co-authored several books with hiswife Dr. Judith Eve Lipton, including Strange Bedfellows: The Surprising Connection Between Sex, Evolution, and Monogamy and The Myth of Monogamy.
visit author page »Praise for Natural Selections
…entertaining and thought-provoking.
— Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate
The writing is lucid, lively, and imaginative, and makes skillful use of analogies.
— Choice
Natural Selections picks up where Steven Jay Gould left off. A delightful read.
— Michael Shermer, author of Why Darwin Matters
David Barash’s lively yet serious writing provides an intelligent, expert introduction to the latest and best evolutionary thinking about human behavior.
— Ellen Dissanaykae, author of Homo Aestheticus
‘Touche,’ the slashing fencer shouts in Thurber’s celebrated cartoon, while the sliced head hardly knows what’s hit it. Such is the fate of sacred cows that find themselves in the path of the redoubtable David Barash.
— Harold Fromm, Co-editor of the Ecocriticism Reader