Humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. While we are similar
to other mammals in many ways, our behavior sets us apart. Our
unparalleled ability to adapt has allowed us to occupy virtually every
habitat on earth using an incredible variety of tools and subsistence
techniques. Our societies are larger, more complex, and more cooperative
than any other mammal's. In this stunning exploration of human
adaptation, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd argue that only a
Darwinian theory of cultural evolution can explain these unique
characteristics.
Not by Genes Alone offers a radical interpretation of human evolution,
arguing that our ecological dominance and our singular social systems
stem from a psychology uniquely adapted to create complex culture.
Richerson and Boyd illustrate here that culture is neither superorganic
nor the handmaiden of the genes. Rather, it is essential to human
adaptation, as much a part of human biology as bipedal locomotion.
Drawing on work in the fields of anthropology, political science,
sociology, and economics--and building their case with such fascinating
examples as kayaks, corporations, clever knots, and yams that require
twelve men to carry them--Richerson and Boyd convincingly demonstrate
that culture and biology are inextricably linked, and they show us how
to think about their interaction in a way that yields a richer
understanding of human nature.
In abandoning the nature-versus-nurture debate as fundamentally
misconceived, Not by Genes Alone is a truly original and
groundbreaking theory of the role of culture in evolution and a book to
be reckoned with for generations to come.
"I continue to be surprised by the number of educated people (many of
them biologists) who think that offering explanations for human behavior
in terms of culture somehow disproves the suggestion that human behavior
can be explained in Darwinian evolutionary terms. Fortunately, we now
have a book to which they may be directed for enlightenment . . . . It
is a book full of good sense and the kinds of intellectual rigor and
clarity of writing that we have come to expect from the Boyd/Richerson
stable."--Robin Dunbar, Nature
"Not by Genes Alone is a valuable and very readable synthesis of a
still embryonic but very important subject straddling the sciences and
humanities."--E. O. Wilson, Harvard University
