Our domesticated brain allowed us to become animals that thrive by living together in groups, but with our technological advances, the size of that group has almost become unlimited by geography or time zones. One wonders whether an ever-expanding group will eventually subsume us. Maybe there will always be tensions to resist the pull of the crowd. One can imagine a future of continual cultural conflict as we try to maintain our group identities in the face of increasing integration. That said, losing our group identities and the prejudices that separate us may be the necessary solution that enables humans to coordinate, cooperate and cohabit on a planet of limited resources. When we start thinking and acting as a group on a global scale, we will be better suited to cope with many of the problems our species faces – population growth, food shortages, deforestation, pandemics and maybe even climate change.
Notes
PREFACE
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CHAPTER 1
1. Dan Wolpert opens with this question in his TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains.html
2. The example of the sea squirt is given by a variety of authors but most notably Rodolfo R. Llinás (2001), I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self, MIT Press.
3. F. de Waal (2013), The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, W. W. Norton & Company.
4. Jane Goodall (1986), The Chimpanzees of the Gombe: Patterns of Behavior, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
5. M. Nakamichi, E. Kato, Y. Kojima and N. Itoigawa (1998), ‘Carrying and washing of grass roots by free-ranging Japanese macaques at Katsuyama’, Folia Primatologica International Journal of Primatology, 69, 35–40.
6. Lydia V. Luncz, Roger Mundry and Christophe Boesch (2012), ‘Evidence for cultural differences between neighboring chimpanzee communities’, Current Biology, 22, 922–6.
7. Richard Dawkins (1976), The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press.
8. Richard Dawkins (1996), The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, New York: Norton & Company.
9. M. E. J. Newman and R. G. Palmer (1999), ‘Models of Extinction: A Review’, Santa Fe Institute working paper, http://www.santafe.edu/media/workingpapers/99–08-061.pdf.
10. The ‘environmental complexity hypothesis’ argues that one of the driving forces for developing intelligence supported by larger brains was the need to adapt to variable environments.
Grove, M. (2011), ‘Change and variability in Plio-Pleistocene climates: Modelling the hominin response’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 38, 3038–47.
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21. K. R. Rosenberg and W. R. Trevathan (2003), ‘The Evolution of Human Birth’, Scientific American, May: 80–85.