The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our child-rearing patterns, our moral codes, our religions, our languages, and science? The book tackles these issues by drawing on ideas from two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture – and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we’re but a tiny, fleeting fragment.
Recent Posts
- Embracing Humanity: Why We Need Science, Philosophy, and Spirituality to Understand Free Will and Personal Agency November 3, 2024
- Spice, Silver, and Slavery: How Global Trade Shaped the Rise of the West November 2, 2024
- Science and Personal Insight: Two Sides of the Same Coin October 5, 2024
- Exploration and Colonisation: The World between 1450 and 1600 September 27, 2024
- The Emergence of a Second Renaissance: September 16, 2024
Archives
- November 2024 (2)
- October 2024 (1)
- September 2024 (3)
- August 2024 (3)
- July 2024 (5)
- June 2024 (3)
- May 2024 (5)
- April 2024 (4)
- March 2024 (2)
- February 2024 (2)
- January 2024 (1)
- November 2023 (2)
- October 2023 (2)
- September 2023 (3)
- August 2023 (1)
- July 2023 (1)
- June 2023 (1)
- May 2023 (7)
- April 2023 (6)
- March 2023 (2)
- February 2023 (1)
- January 2023 (5)
- December 2022 (2)
- October 2022 (1)
- September 2022 (1)
- August 2022 (1)
- July 2022 (2)
- June 2022 (1)
- March 2022 (1)
- February 2022 (1)
- January 2022 (2)
- May 2021 (1)
- April 2021 (1)
- March 2021 (2)
- February 2021 (1)
- November 2020 (1)
- October 2020 (3)
- September 2020 (1)
- July 2020 (1)
- May 2020 (4)
- April 2020 (1)
- June 2019 (1)
- May 2019 (2)
- April 2019 (1)
- March 2019 (1)
- June 2018 (1)
- December 2017 (1)
- July 2017 (2)