Uncover Wired For Culture: Origins Of The Human Social Mind Executed By Mark Pagel Released As Audio Books

like reading books that make me think of concepts and ideas that I take for granted and Wired for Culture was one of the best I read in awhile that made me wonder about where our culture/world is going.
I particularly liked reading about the link between modern culture and apes because I tend to think that modern culture is inhuman and far above other animals and it was nice to get that wake up call that we are still!!! like chimpanzees as well as a lot of other creatures.


The guy who wrote the book seemed like a very esteemed sort of person and I wondered what his life is like on a daily basis.
I bet he must influence quite a lot of people with a book like this, He seemed very humble though and it must be a joy to him to have such knowledge on such a heavily debated subject at least I suppose it is.


I also enjoyed hearing about all the history of what accomplishments or lack thereof we have made in society.
It was fascinating to read about all the little things we do that make us so different from other species.
A must read for anyone who wants to understand our ancestors and how we have benefited from them.
A book in my favourite genre: social science well explained and uptodate but not overly simplified, Took me quite a long time to finish not because of the book, but because I had to put it aside for other books to be read first.
Pagel's style of writing is very pleasant with a good sense of style, Some of his witty remarks came quite close to political commentary, but luckily not to an annoying degree.
Cultural evolution is a hot topic that can be used to explain almost anything, Pagel stands clear from political opportunism and focuses on his core topic: what makes us, the humans,

fundamentally different from the rest of the animal kingdom.


This question although very much worth discussing oddly enough slightly undermines the whole idea of culture.
My reading of culture is that it is just a tool box for coping in a shared sense of reality.
Pagel's reading is different as he seems to think that culture is matter of sophistication, development and progress.
By the same token, I personally regard the humans not as fundamentally different from animals but only as an astonishing example of the mammal species.
Pagel's viewpoint seems to be more hierarchial and he values animal cultures whether or not they attain the same qualities as the human version does.
Obviously, they never do, and theregy Pagel is slightly trapped in a viscious circle,

Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed reading this highly enlightening book, One of its jewels is in its excellent list of references, I am doubtful whether the Kindle edition was the best choice, On one hand, I made many notes and highlights and will propably return to the book for references, but on the other hand, I would have liked to quickly page back to earlier chapters just to check things out.
I also wonder whether the paper versions had any illustrations the topic could certainly have deserved some.
As mentioned in We Need to Talk, I wrote this review on May,and posted it to GoodReads on May,,

Note: To get a sense of the contents of this book without reading my entire review/summary, you can examine the first two paragraphs and the last one that begins with “This delightful book”.


The central thesis of this book is that humans are driven by culture every bit as much as, and perhaps more so than, by genes.
The ageold question, “Are we pretty much fixed by our genes or is the environment also a factor in our destiny” has to do with genetic versus cultural influences p.
. Elements of culture can act like genes in the sense of being capable of transmission and reproduction p.
. But whereas humans are stuck with genes from their parents, there is no such limitation in the transfer of ideas.
Unlike other animals, humans derive their behaviors from the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors, rather than solely from the genes passed on to them.
Ironically, forming tribes and cultures that are perpetually at war with each other is in direct conflict with our genetic disposition to get along and be mutually altruistic p.
x.

The deep influence of culture arises from the fact that even if only one person entertains a thought, it can still potentially spread to the entire human population through social learning.
Good ideas survive and spread and bad ideas die out, Here, goodness is not judged by moral standards but by the contribution of the idea to human survival.
The culture into which we happen to be born determines our diet, language, who we befriend or mate, and who we fight or kill.
The cultures influence is so strong that it can even get us to kill our own children “honor” killings, something that is in direct conflict with our evolutionary imperative to spread our genes p.
. I may come to believe that there is only one true and just God, This belief might make my mind vulnerable to the further idea that people who believe in other gods should be punished or perhaps even killed pp.
. Other animals also exhibit some social learning such as the blue tit, a bird closely related to the American chickadee, learning to poke holes in the foil tops of milk bottles left at the doorsteps of houses in a southern England village, a behavior that spread in that region for someyears, but the extent of their learning is very limited p.
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Bodies are mere vehicles to help genes survive, Viruses use our bodies in much the same way for their own survival, Cultural elements or ideas are viruses of our minds, using our bodies as vehicles to propagate in much the same way as biological viruses do.
In the words of philosopher Daniel Dennett: “A scholar is just a librarys way of making another library” p.
. But whereas our genes share a common route into the future, elements of culture survive more or less independently of each other.
Cultural evolution allowed humans to be the first species to spread out and occupy every corner of the world, regardless of climate and available local resources.
All other animals are limited by their genes to life in specific environments p,. The development of culture is probably what saved us humans from extinction, About,years ago, there may have been as few as,some say fewer of our ancestors alive, so we were as endangered as a species as todays rhinoceros p.
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Biologically, species acquire new traits as a result of random genetic mutation, Those new traits that contribute to the species survival then propagate, as members of the species lacking them die off or do not reproduce as much.
In this way, evolution tends to produce uniformity in survivalrelevant traits, but other traits, such as height, hair color, personality, or math ability, may exhibit more variations if they are not critical to survival.
Examples of uniformity in mammals include the same numberof neck vertebrae yes, even in giraffes,arms, andfingers p.
. Our genetic evolution is still in progress, For example, the ability to digest milk as an adult is a very recent genetic development in humans p.
. We have been evolving to become more peaceful beings, UK data shows that crime has been steadily declining foryears p,. There are no genes for various professions or religions, but your genetic makeup gives you a particular temperament or personality that can influence your attraction to some profession or religious faith p.
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We have evolved to be optimistic and trusting, We have also developed a capability to detect among us the social cheats, those individuals who benefit from the others good will, without intending to return it, as demonstrated by the research of my UCSB colleagues, Leah Cosmides and John Tooby pp.
. The rosecolored glasses we wear sometimes hide certain ugly truths from us, I was surprised to learn that “people susceptible to depression often have more accurate perceptions of the world than nondepressives.
When they say they have no friends, nobody likes them, they are hopeless at their job, or have no future, they are often more right than not” p.
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Natural selection has accomplished all this by sculpting simple local rules, not the complex, finished systems that we see in nature.
New research has revealed that complex system can possess emergent properties that no one designed into them p.
. Termites build large, elaborate structures not by thinking and designing the structure in its entirety, but by following simple local rules p.
. An example of such a rule might be: If you see a woodchip and you are not carrying one, then pick it up and move on otherwise, drop the woodchip you are carrying next the one you see.
By each termite following this simple rule, large piles of woodchip will materialize over time, without any planning or even awareness on the part of the participating termites.
More generally, following very simple local rules can lead to global, selforganizing systems,

Evolution is often viewed and explained in the competitive context of “survival of the fittest.
” However, we now understand that selflessness and collaboration also contribute to survival, albeit in an indirect way.
There is no better evidence of the evolutionary basis of sacrifice and altruism than this anecdote about slime molds, also known as social amoebae.
Most of the time, they lead a solitary existence, But when threatened with starvation, they send out a chemical alarm summoning them to unite, Then, the amoebae cooperate, climbing up over each other to build a physical tower or stalk, From those who reach the very top of the tower, a fortunate few participate in launching spores that may be carried by the wind or passing animals to better lands.
The rest will die, having given their lives for total strangers p,.

The large size of our brain distinguishes us from other animal species, Generally speaking, Carnivores have larger brains relative to their body sizes because they have to outwit their prey p.
. Using our oversized brains to outmaneuver and take advantage of other animals, including other humans, is part of our nature p.
. “No one would ever ask if a snakes deadly poison has been a force for good or why the snake embraces it.
No one would ask why our armies embraced better longbows, or later on, better guns, In fact, because of culture and civilization, we no longer need such a large brain, so after a remarkable growth spurt in recent evolutionary history, the human brain has started to shrink p.
. The ability to make decisions is another hallmark of humans next on my toread list is Jonah Lehrers How We Decide.
Many of our important decisions are instantaneous, but if asked how we made the decisions, our minds require some time to explain the logical bases for those decisions, suggesting that the initial snap decisions did not involve logical reasoning or detailed tradeoff analyses p.
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Like all other animals, human beings are better at copying and following than at innovating and leading.
Fortunately, cultural learning allows novel ideas to propagate, even if only a few people produce them, This is why as a survival skill, social intelligence is more important than inventiveness p,. We are also not very good at connecting causes with effects, We easily mistake correlation for causation, For example, doctors know that most common illnesses get better on their own within aboutweeks, Now, if someone proposes a ritual or ceremonial treatment, we may come to associate the improvement with the treatment p.
. Pigeons fed at random times have shown a tendency to move or prance in a certain way within their cages, if they were engaged in similar movements at a few of the random feeding times p.
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Religion is a very important component of culture, in the sense of influencing human behavior.
Throughout history, religion has thrived by providing hope as well as motivation to fight, First, regarding hope: A man who had survived Haitian hurricanes inandand then lost his wife and children in theearthquake was thankful that God had chosen to spare him p.
. Second, fear and hatred of despicable people is more motivating in a bitter conflict than thinking of your enemy as a person just like you who happens to be competing with you for some limited resource.
In other words: “Up against a group in battle who consider you despicable, it might be useful for you to acquire your own brand of motivational bigotry” p.
. “Now, if you are the sort of person who can hold false beliefs, or have an ability to act on blind faith, you are probably also the sort of person who could be persuaded of the moral superiority of your group over the one next door.
When group conflict is never very far away, religious believers become the kind of people others like to have around” p.
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One of the most interesting information nuggets in the book is the description of an experiment performed on monkeys placed in a room, with a banana hanging from the ceiling.
There is a box on which a monkey can hop to reach the banana, But whenever a monkey tries to do this, the entire group is sprayed with water, something the monkeys hate.
After a while, no monkey tries to reach the banana by hopping on the box and if an errant monkey decides to do that, the other monkeys would restrain it.
Then a monkey is removed and replaced by a newcomer to the group, Not surprisingly, the uninformed newcomer tries to hop on the box, but the other monkeys restrain it each time, until the new monkey is indoctrinated.
The original monkeys are replaced one by one with newcomers, until no member of the original group is left.
The monkeys continue to restrain any adventurous soul that tries to hop on the box, although at this stage, none of them knows why its not a good idea to try to get the banana p.
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The most important tool in the development and spread of culture is language, which allows us to express ideas for propagation in time and space.
Human language is digital, offering an endless combination of words other animals communicate via continuous howls and the like p.
. Human language has its own intriguing evolutionary history, As our languages evolve and branch out, more frequently used words undergo small or virtually no changes, whereas less frequently used words change drastically.
Someof our speech is made up ofwords, and this is true in nearly any language p.
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Language allows us to propagate many ideas, but our brain has not kept up in its ability to process vast amounts of information.
Todays humans misuse the wealth of information available to them from many different sources, “because our brains assume that the rate at which these things come to our attention from all over the world is the same as the rate in our local area.
So, when I hear every day of children being snatched, my brain gives me the wrong answer to the question of risk: it has divided a big number the children snatched all over the world by a small number the tribe” pp.
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This delightful book is full of interesting observations and useful information, weaved together in an entertaining and easily understood way.
The author instills in us the idea that culture is really a system for selecting best ideas and practices and for enabling cooperation through managing a currency of reputations.
Culture may in the end allow us to move beyond our tribalism and ethnocentric tendencies that have been ingrained in us “because all that is required for it to have been a successful strategy throughout our history is that markers of common ethnicity were a betterthanchance predictor of common culture, and thus common goals and values” p.
. But the aforementioned system of reputations allows us to reach out to people outside our tribes and ethnic groups and to develop mutual trust.
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