Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

by Gaia Vince

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools have enabled humans to control the destiny of our species.


What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution – a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones – caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements – fire, language, beauty, and time – our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvellous.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Anthropology, Evolution, Biology, Sociology

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2020

About the author

Gaia Vince is a freelance British environmental journalist. broadcaster and non-fiction author.
Vince, a dual British and Australian national, is a chemist who studied at King’s College, London and then at the University of Bordeaux before undertaking a masters in engineering design. To fund her university studies, Vince freelanced as a journalist and at the Science Museum, building a tandem career which led her to leave research and take up writing full-time. She writes for The Guardian, and, in a column called Smart Planet, for BBC Online. She was previously news editor of Nature and online editor of New Scientist.

Reviews

[BookHunter M ُH َM َD · Rating 4 out of 5]

‎❞ تَنتَقِلُ بنا الكاتبة مِنَ نشأة الكون إلى ظهور الإنسان على الأرض وتُفَصِّلُ في تطوره البيولوجي والثقافي خاصةً من خلال عوامل رئيسية هي: النار واللغة والجَمال والزمن. وتُؤكِّدُ في مناقشتِها على تَمَيُّزِ الإنسان العاقِل على جميع الكائنات الحَيَّة الأخرى في ناحيتين: التَّراكُم والتَّقَدم في تطورِنا البيولوجي والثقافي بتأثير تَغَيُّرات ظروف البيئة وقدرتِنا الفَريدة على تَغيير البيئة ذاتها في الوقت نفسه. الإنسان هو الكائن الحَيُّ الوحيد الذي قام بِتَغيير بيئته وغَيَّرَ مظاهرها في كافة أرجاء هذا الكوكب بِفَضلِ الإمكانيات العقلية والاجتماعية الفريدة التي يَتمَتَّعُ بها.‏ ❝
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‎❞ إنّ جسمنا البديع في عمله مِنَ العَينَين إلى القَدَمَين إلى الدماغ الواعي المُدرِك قد نَشَأ من خَلية واحِدة خلال أسابيع. تَبدأُ البُويضَةُ المُلَقَّحَة بالنمو وتَنقسمُ وتُصبحُ تلك الخَلية الواحِدة كتلةً من خلايا جِذعِيَّة مُتعدِّدَة الإمكانيات أي أن لديها الإمكانية لكي تُصبِحَ أي نَوعٍ من الخلايا في جِسمنا حسبما يَقتَضيه طريقُ تطورها البيولوجي. وهكذا قد تَتطَور خليةٌ وجَدتْ نفسَها صدفةً على محيطِ الكُرة (كتلة الخَلايا الجِذعِيّة) وتُصبحَ خَلية عَصَبية في النُّخاع الشَّوكي وخَليةٌ أخرى يَختلفُ طريقُ تطورها لتُصبحَ خليةً قَلبية. صَنَعَ التطور آليةً لبِناء جسمٍ وظيفي متكامِل من أعضاء وخلايا متعاوِنة إنسانٌ كاملٌ مِن خَليةٍ بسيطة واحِدة.‏ ❝
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❞ البَشَرُ الآن أطول عُمراً ويَعيشون حياةً أفضل من ذي قَبل ونحن أكثر الحيوانات الكبيرة عَدَداً على سطح الأرض بينما القرودُ المُهدَّدَة بالانقراض وهي أقرب الحيوانات إلينا تَستمرُ بالعَيشِ مثلما كانت تَعيشُ منذ ملايين السنين. نحن لَسنا مِثل بقية الحيوانات على الرغم من أننا نَشأنا وتَطورنا من خلال النظام ذاته. فَمَنْ نحن إذاً؟‏ ❝
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❞ لَسنا النَّوعَ البشري الوحيد الذي سارَ على هذا الطريق التطوري وسَنَزورُ أولاد عمومَتنا غير أننا الوحيدون الذين ظَلُّوا أحياء. منذ مئات الآلاف من السنين بدأنا نَهربُ مِن مَهدِ بيئتِنا الأصلي باستِخدام ثقافتِنا للتَّغَلب على الأسوار الفيزيائية والبيولوجية التي حَبَسَت الأنواعَ الأخرى في حياتهم غير المُبدِعة. تَدفَعُ تَطَورنا الاستثنائي عواملُ أربعة رئيسية سَأصِفُها في الأجزاء التالية: النار والكلمة والجَمال والزمن.‏ ❝
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❞ وَسَّعنا إمكانياتنا الفيزيائية باستخدام الأدوات ووَسَّعنا دائرة الإدراك والمهارة في حَلِّ المعضلات إلى الدماغ المُشترَك في مجتمعنا. استطاع نَوعُنا بفضل تطورٍ ثقافي جماعي أن يزيد أعدادنا باستغلالٍ ناجحٍ للبيئة بأكثر كفاءة ممكِنة في استِخدام الطاقة.❝
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❞ تَستخدِم البشرية بشكل عام حوالي 17.5 تيراواط من الطاقة أي حوالي 2,300 واط يَصرفه كلّ واحدٍ منّا ويزيد ذلك 26 مرة من طاقتنا «الطبيعية». تمكَّنا من استِخدام هذا الارتفاع المُذهل بفضل الاستعانة بمصادر خارجية وتوزيع الأعمال التي تحتاج إلى الطاقة والوقت. يَسمح لنا ذلك بتوليد فائضٍ من الطاقة والغذاء والوقت ويؤدي إلى زيادة أكبر في عدد السكان مما يمكننا بدوره من زيادة كفاءة استِخدِام الطاقة وإيجاد مصادر خارجية أكثر. ❝
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❞ تُشَكِّلُ السيطرة على النار نقطةَ تَحَوُّلٍ في قصتنا وأيضاً في قصة الحياة على الأرض لأنها كانت الخطوة الأولى في طريقنا لكي نصبح قوةً جديدة في الأرض. غَيَّرنا إلى الأبد آليات حَرَكَةِ الطاقة بين الكائن الحَيّ وظروف بيئته وفَعَلْنا ذلك بشكلٍ كبير عن طريق تقليد بعضنا بعضاً بطريقةٍ استراتيجية وبأننا بَنينَا مَعاً دِماغاً جَماعياً ذكياً.‏ ❝
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‎❞ القصصُ تأقلمٌ حيوي قوي لأنها تسمحُ لنا بالسفر بذاكرتنا عبر الزمن وتسمح لنا كذلك بالاستكشاف الذهني لاحتمالات مستقبلية مختلفة بدون هدر للوقت والطاقة. وكأنها تعمل كتجربةٍ افتراضية ذهنية تُمَكِّنُنا من معايشة فرضيات خطرة أو صعبة وتَحفظ لنا النتائج. نحن نفعل ذلك دائما بشكل غريزي: نستطيع تخيل السفر على طريق إلى مصدرين مختلفين للماء ونقرر أيهما هو الاختيار الأفضل دون الحاجة للقيام فعلياً بالسَّير شخصياً على الطريقين.‏ ❝
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❞ تُمَثِّلُ الملابسُ الحالةَ ذاتها. يُناقِش باحثون في عِلم الإنسان أن ارتداء «ورقة التوت» أو «ورقة التين» قد بَدَأ كعرفٍ اجتماعي لتَغطية الأعضاء التناسلية التي انكَشَفَتْ بسبب وضعية الوقوف عند الإنسان: سَمَحَتْ هذه العادة لعددٍ كبير من البشر غير الأقرباء لكي يَعيشوا معاً دون حدوث صراعات وخلافات مستمرة. أما نَظريَّتي الخاصة فهي أن هذه العادة نَشأتْ مع الاستِخدام العَملي للحَمَّالات في حَمل الأطفال واستِخدام النساء للمِئزَر أثناء الطَّمث. ومثل كل الأشياء الأخرى نَصنَعُها أو نَستَخدُمها فإن تصبحُ مهمّة ثقافياً ويتم تزيينها وزَخرفتها وتقييمها وتقليدها ربما في كلا الجنسين. يُرسِلُ الناسُ من خلال نمط ملابسهم إشارات عن الوضع الاجتماعي والجنس ورسائل ثقافية مهمّة مثل الانتماء إلى قبيلتهم وديانتهم مما يُرسِّخُ عقلية «نحن مقابل الآخرين» التي تَفصِلُ جماعات البشر وتُضخِّم الفوارق الاجتماعية ضمن القبيلة الواحدة. وبهذه الطريقة تَلعبُ الملابسُ دَوراً رئيسياً في تطور ثقافات متمايزة وفي تطويرها وتَنافُسِها كل بحسب تقنياته وخبرته. وهذا هو الهدف من التَّزيين والزخرفة في تطور التأقلم الثقافي: لكي تَعكس الأعراف الاجتماعية وتَربط أفراد القبيلة مع بعضهم بعضاً في رواية واحدة.‏ ❝
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❞ عندما تَغَيَّرتْ ظروفُ البيئة منذ حوالي 11,000 سنة وتَغيَّر نَمَطُ التيارات البحرية التي رفَعتْ سويةَ غاز ثاني أكسيد الكربون في الهواء تَفَجَّرَتْ بيئةُ الأرض بالخصوبة. وخلال ثلاثة آلاف سنة ارتفعَ تَركيزُ غاز ثاني أكسيد الكربون في الهواء إلى 250 جزءاً في المليون مما أدى إلى زيادة كبيرة في انتاجية النباتات ساعَدتْ بدورها على تَحسين التربة وتَخزين النيتروجين والماء. الزيادةُ الهائلة التي حَدَثتْ في الحبوب البريّة والفاكهة وغيرها من النباتات المفيدة تَعني أن الصيادين/الجامِعين لم يضطروا آنذاك إلى التَّنَقل بعيداً للحصول على المؤن وأن القطعان تَستطيع البقاء في مناطقها فترات أطول وحَصَلَ البشرُ على استقرار في مواردهم بحيث تمكَّنوا من التعاون على مشاريع إنشاء أبنية كبيرة. بهذه الخطوات الصغيرة أصبَحنا مواطنين وبَنائين لامبراطوريات هائلة. غَيَّرَنا البحثُ عن الجَمال وغَيَّرَ عالَمنا إلا أن هذه الثورة الثقافية لم تكن ممكِنة إلا من خلال التَّغير المناخي.‏ ❝
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❞ اللغة أكثر من مُجَرَّد معلومات مُشَفَّرَة وما تزال الروبوتات بدائيةً في تَواصُلِها. يَكمُنُ السِّر في ذلك في الاختلاف الخَفي العميق بين المعلومات والمعاني. المعلوماتُ مُتَضَمَّنةٌ في كلمات وجُمل بينما تعتمد المَعاني الأكثر أهمية على سِياق المُتُحدِّث والسَّامع والمَزيج الثقافي المُتَطَور. ❝
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❞ تَمكَّنا بواسطة الجَمال من خَلقِ لُغةٍ بَصَرية أسَّستْ تعاوناً مع مجموعات أكبر من الناس لتأليف قبيلة مُتَّحدة في هوية مشترَكة وعادات اجتماعية ونظام معتقدات جماعي. نَجَحَ العملُ على هذه المستويات في تقديم ميزات حيوية واقتصادية وقدرة أكبر على البقاء كما مَكَّنَنا مِنَ التَّنافس مع قبائل أخرى على المَوارد والمَصادر. غير أن التناقض الكبير في ثقافة الإنسان هو أنه على الرغم من مَيلنا إلى القَبَلية إلا أننا نعتمد على التعاون بين قبائلنا في تبادُل الأفكار والمَصادر والصِّفات الوراثية كما سنَكتَشِفُ لاحِقاً.‏ ❝
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❞ نَتَعامل ونَتَبادل ونُتَاجر الآن بسهولة أكبر كثيراً ولكن العملة التي نَستخدِمها في المعاملات لا تحمل قيمتها في حَدِّ ذاتها بل تتضمن نوعاً جديداً من الاعتقاد العام المشترَك. وعلى كل حال فإن التعامل الأصلي الذي قُمنا به باستِخدام المقتَنيات وإعطاء قيمة لأشياء غير مفيدة لنا بيولوجياً في حَدِّ ذاتها وليست طَعاماً نأكله ولا شَراباً نَشربه… ربما كانت أكبر قَفزةٍ إيمانية قُمنا بها في تاريخنا.‏ ❝
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❞ ما أن بدأ الناس بامتلاك الحيوانات والنباتات بَدَلاً من التعامل معها كمَخلوقات بريّة حتى تَغيَّرتْ هذه العلاقة. تَغيَّرتْ آلهتنا مِنَ الحيوانات الحَيَّة والهياكل الطبيعية إلى أشكال مَبنِيَّة وهَياكل رَمزية ثم إلى أشكال بَشَرية. كما تَغيَّرتْ حالتنا الهَرَميّة في المجتمع. عندما أنشأنا أبنيةً دائمة لتَحمينا من المَخاطر ومَهَّدنا الطرق وغيَّرنا مَسار تَدفقِ المياه… فقد صَنَعنَا عالَم الإنسان ❝
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❞ غَيَّرَ اختراعُنا للوقت ظروفَ الإنسان إلى ظروفٍ تُقاسُ بالوقت وغيَّر ذلك ثقافتنا وحياتنا العضوية. ربما كنّا ذات يوم أكثر وَعياً بإيقاعِنا الطبيعي وأكثر انسجاماً مع الدَّورات الُمَتأرجِحة لأجسامنا عندما كانت إشاراتنا ومُحَفِّزاتنا الخارجية صادرة عن العالَم الطبيعي. ❝
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❞ فهل نُصَدِّقُ تجربتنا الخاصة ورؤية خبرتنا العَمَلية للواقع أم حقيقته الموضوعية؟ فما يبدو صحيحاً دون أي شك بالنسبة لِفِئةٍ من الناس قد يبدو جنوناً أو شريراً بالنسبة لآخرين. ❝
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❞ مَعنى الحياةُ مِنْ وجهة نَظَرٍ تَطَوريّة هو أن تَستَمر مُوَرِّثاتُنا في الوجود وقد تَمَكَّنَا في الماضي من تطوير طريقة ناجِحة لفِعلِ ذلك مِنْ خلال الثقافة بحيثُ أننا نَسودُ كافة أشكال الحَياة على الأرض. ولكنَّ هَدَفنا الثقافي وهو حُرِّيَةُ تَقرير المَصير قد حَجَبَ وطَغى على بيولوجية أجسامِنا. لدينا القدرة على انتقاء مُوَرِّثاتِنا وأن نَقرّرَ مَنْ يَعيشُ ومَن يَموتُ بل ونَستطيعُ القَضاء على نَوعِنا البَشَري كله. إذا أرَدْنَا البَقاءَ أحياءَ فَيَجِبُ على تَطَورِنا الثقافي أنْ يَتَّخِذَ الخطوةَ التالية والانتقالَ مِنَ المُحافَظة على جَماعتِنا إلى المُحافَظَة على جَميع سُكّان العالَم. ❝
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❞ نحن جميعُنا جُزءٌ مِنْ شيء غير عادي: مساهَماتُنا المُتكَررة في بِناء ثقافتنا المشترَكة تأخذُنا في اتجاهاتٍ لا يُمكِن التَّنبؤ بها وتَخلقُ لَنا مشاكلَ جديدة ونأملُ أنها ستُقَدِّمُ لنا حلولاً جديدة أيضاً. ففي نهاية الأمر لا يوجَدُ أحَدٌ غَيرنا.‏ ❝

[Libby · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+ - ‘Transcendence’ is a scientific discourse on humankind’s evolutionary development as well as a look into possible ways that we might in the future overcome (transcend) limitations, especially the obstacles that we have created for ourselves. The author, Gaia Vince, is a science journalist and broadcaster, and the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book Prize for her debut book, “Adventures in the Anthropocene.” The book is arranged in an organized way, which helped my brain (somewhat) click into the points Vince makes. The subtitle “How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time.” informs the reader of the discussions that will take place. Vince’s writing style kept me for the most part engaged. She relates facts in a story-like way that I found mostly fascinating and absorbing.

Vince writes about humankind’s discovery of fire as a big game changer. Our ancestors likely captured fire when it was set by nature and carried it from camp to camp. Because it consists of several steps, fire making came later. She asks, “So was it our bigger, smarter brains that enabled fire making, or was it fire making that enabled our bigger brains?” Her answer, “Well, it was both: a mutually reinforcing evolutionary process that took hundreds of thousands of years of feedbacks as our genes, culture, and environment all adapted.” Fire provided for safety from predators and allowed us to cook meat and other food, making it more easily digested, thereby allowing for better nutrition, which led to bigger brains. We began to move to the savannahs and hunt, which required coordinated efforts and sociability. Human culture and learning became a major feature of our evolving brains.

Vince devotes an entire chapter to ‘Brain Building’ as a directly synergetic result of fire making and evolution. For a baby to travel through the birth canal with its bigger brain, evolution provided a solution with a delayed fusion of the skull plates, allowing the head to temporarily misshapen. Vince writes, “our hypersociality, which required such a large brain, evolved in step with the need for assisted birthing.” All over the world, humans require assistance to bring their newborns into the world. They also need assistance in learning how to take care of their young. Vince writes about the difficulty she had in learning to breastfeed her own child. Whereas so many think it is a natural and thus easy to do process, she found that such was not the case. As a nurse working with mothers and their newborns, I can vouch for her experience. I spent many hours with new mothers assisting them in learning to feed their newborns. All over the world and for eons of time, mothers have needed this kind of help.

In the section on language, Vince writes about the Australian Aboriginal’s songlines, part of indigenous memory and culture. “Melodic variance, artworks, and dance are used to describe landmarks, trees, rocky protrusions, creatures, weather patterns, and waterholes--often with reference to the constellations above.....If you know the song, you can find your way from one end of a track to another: each musical phrase is a map reference…” She goes on to say that “Information told through stories is far more memorable--22 times more, according to one study--because multiple parts of the brain are activated for narratives.” Most readers are aware of this, that’s one of the many reasons we read. We live vicariously through many characters, many places, and at times, through situations fraught with danger, all without disturbing a hair on our heads. We’re armchair travelers, but oh, the places we have seen, and the things we have learned.

Of absorbing interest to me was Vince’s discussion on reciprocity as a major feature of the way we learn. When infants are exposed to video or audio, it makes no impact on their learning to talk. It is only through the human tutor that children learn to speak. “Shared attention is the starting point of conscious human learning. It is why infants don’t learn to talk from video, audio, or overhearing parental conversations. We haven’t evolved to. We need reciprocity to be validated as separate people.”

This is a fascinating book and I’ve only touched briefly on some of the subjects Vince covers.For those who want to do further research, she has included footnoted resources. Sadly there is no bibliography or list of recommended readings. Her chapters on beauty have a lot to do with how our economies have evolved. Time is equally intriguing as she covers clocks and reasoning and looks forward into a future where mankind might become better stewards of their gifts.

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a lot in here that you've probably heard before if you read this stuff, but it is so comprehensive and so easy to read that I would highly recommend it.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is receiving both very positive as well as very negative comments and ratings. Although I tend towards the latter, I still have a lot of appreciation for the enormous amount of knowledge that Gaia Vince has incorporated into this, and for the way in which she has tried to organize it into a workable whole. In recent decades, more people have ventured into an attempt to present a coherent, historically based vision of humanity. Just think of Yuval Harari, David Christian, Stephen Pinker and so on. It takes special courage to do “the big take”.

Celebrated British science journalist Gaia Vince focuses on 4 themes, which she believes explain why humans, ‘homo sapiens’, have managed to gain a unique grasp of nature and themselves: fire, language, beauty and time. Her vision is certainly relevant, but also a bit predictable and obvious. What bothers me most, however, is that she makes an unlikely mix of facts and figures, often without proper source references. And in some cases her premises just are speculation, based on no or flimsy archaeological evidence. On that basis, I'm afraid I can't recommend reading this book, however interesting. It certainly not is on par with Harari, Christian, Pinker and others. More about that in my History-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Radiantflux · Rating 2 out of 5]

28th book for 2020.

A pop-science book covering somewhat similar ground to Sapiens, exploring grand themes of evolution and culture.

Although I liked Vince's earlier book on Adventures in the Anthropocene, I found her latest book poorly written, with an annoyingly discursive writing style, meandering from point to point, making grand statements along the way, many questionable, most unreferenced.

Disappointing.

2-stars.

[Mircea Petcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Omul nu este singura specie care a creat culturâ. Ceea ce face specială cultura umană este caracterul cumulativ. În timp ce cimpanzeii trebuie să reinventeze de fiecare dată roata, noi ne putem baza pe eficiența procesului cultural evoluționist pentru a realiza eficient și rapid diversele activități.

Fundamentul evoluției culturale este copierea, la fel cum copierea genomului este pentru cea biologică. Dacă nu copiem suficient de precis, atunci diferitele practici culturale nu vor persista îndeajuns de mult timp în comunitate pentru a fi reproduse, iar cultura cumulativă nu poate apărea. Cu cât un lucru este copiat cu mai multă precizie cu atât sunt mai multe oportunități pentru a apărea mici modificări și perfecționări ale acelor practici-mutațiile care conduc la variații.

Cât de asemănătoare este evoluția culturală cu evoluția biologică! Iar cele două nu acționează separat, ci se află într-o relație de strânsă interdependență. Mi-am adus aminte de maxima geneticianului Adam Rutherford: ”biologia facilitează cultura, cultura modifică biologia”.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I'd had this as a resource when I was in college. This reads like a textbook, and I mean that in the best possible way. The author manages to draw from so many disciplines at the same time. The book is superbly researched and a tremendous boon to cultural anthropology, archaeology, sociology, and biology.

[Sense of History]

There is a clear line in Gaia Vince's argument: mainly through the ingenious use of culture, humans have succeeded in transcending their genetic basis and physical environment and thus becoming the motor of change themselves. “It all rests on a special relationship between the evolution of our genes, environment and culture, which I call our human evolutionary triad. This mutually reinforcing triad creates the extraordinary nature of us, a species with the ability to be not simply the objects of a transformative cosmos, but agents of our own transformation. We have diverged from the evolutionary path taken by all other animals, and, right now, we are on the cusp of becoming something grander and more marvellous. As the environment that created us is transformed by us we are beginning our greatest transcendence”. These are big words, and Vince is convinced that humans are about to transform themselves through their own technological ingenuity into what you could call another species. And according to her, it should even be able to cope with the harmful side effects of the human grip on nature (to name but one: global warming).

To my taste, that all smells a bit too much like human adulation and technological overestimation. But what annoyed me most about this book is the sloppiness with which Vince has built her argument. This already starts with her first chapter in which she describes the formation of our universe, and she does so in a hell of a pace, for instance by presenting the Big Bang theory as an established fact. Other aspects of the evolution of the earth and mankind are also presented as facts, without the slightest mention of the scientific discussion about them. She cites the classic version of the transition to bipedalism in which walking upright is attributed to the transition to life in the savannah, a thesis that since long as been more nuanced. My alarm bells definitely went off when she writes that after 300,000 BP, 12 races developed due to the desiccation of the Sahara, and when she calls the Denisova a separate human race. Consequently, I looked at her source references, and these leave quite a bit to be desired, with sometimes very limited studies, or no references at all. It seems to me that Vince made an attempt to write an interesting book, but based on a very shaky foundation.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through the mediums of fire, language, beauty and time, Gaia Vince eloquently describes how we, as human beings, altered and influenced the course of our own evolution. She details how paleological evidence suggests that our ancestors outsourced their energy stores and extended their biological capabilities. And she walks us through the evolution of language and how it enabled the accumulation and transmission of complex thoughts and ideologies.
_____________________________
Did you know?…

The procedure of cesarean section has produced an increase in narrow pelvises in women.

The advent of bicycles prior to the first world war made the average French person taller.

More intelligent people tend to have fewer children. (This explains so much!)
_____________________________

“Religious people are perceived to be nicer, more cooperative people. But although they are more likely to be trusting and trustworthy, they tend to limit these qualities to those who share their values.”

[K.J. Charles]

Didn't hold my attention at all. I read about a hundred pages, found the style heavy going, and felt I'd gleaned very little information for the length. Obviously, lots of people think it's magisterial science writing so possibly just a casualty of my pandemic brain, but I'm moving on.

[Tom Roth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book was one of the worst, if not the worst, books I have ever read about human evolution. This mainly related to three things, namely (1) the context of the book, (2) the writing style, (3) selective use of information/sources.

First, the book tries to cover way too much and draws from too many different branches of science. The end product is therefore a superficial book with many unsubstantiated sweeping statements about human evolution and evolution in general. In addition, the four “subjects” are quite random. Vince could just as well have chosen cooperation, tool use, creativity, bipedalism etc. It is not quite clear how she came up with especially those four topics.

Second, I found the writing style quite annoying. It has sort of a spiritual tone, which distracted me. Within each chapter, the authors skips from one subject to the other, from ancient to contemporary, from evolution to sociology. This results in continuous sweeping statements. In addition, the author does very little to define concepts that are central to her book, such as cultural evolution, cultural learning etc. She just throws in the terms without any background, even though definitions of these terms are highly debated within biology.

The third, and for me most annoying problem, is the lack of and selective use of references. For example, Vince speaks of the obstetrical dilemma (childbirth) and the grandmother’s hypothesis (menopause) as if there is consensus on these explanations, even though both are still heavily debated (especially the obstetrical dilemma). Similarly, Vince hints towards widely discredited dysgenics theories of intelligence. At the same time, many statements are unreferenced or incorrectly referenced. From my own expertise, I found at least two examples of this. First, Vince mentions that rhesus macaques select partners that have a symmetrical face (no reference). There is no evidence supporting this. I think she refers to a study that found that rhesus macaque females look longer at symmetrical faces of male macaques. However, there is no evidence whatsoever that this translates into actual mate choices. Second, Vince mentions that there is absolutely no evidence for episodic memory in apes, and cites a source for that. However, this source does not suggest this at all, and actually describes that many advances have been made in the study of episodic memory in animals.

In short, I can up to some extent accept a book that tries to cover too much ground, and is written in a style I do not like. However, I find the use of evidence extremely sloppy for a science journalist. So, I’d advice others to look for better books on these specific topics. For example, Cecilia Heyes’ book Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking covers somewhat similar topics (e.g. how culture, evolution and cognition interact) in a way more appropriate way. The same applies to Evolving Insight: How It Is We Can Think about Why Things Happen by Richard Byrne. Although these books are a bit less accessible, the content of these books is more trustworthy than the content of Transcendence.

[Boudewijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

How fire, language, beauty, and time made us what we are today

I am very interested in the topic of evolution and human development, having read all the 'classics' such as Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari for example. This book was a nice follow-up on those books.

Where Jared Diamond was focussed on the way our surroundings influenced human development and Harari's take was more a philosophical one, Gaia Vince explains human development as result of nuanced evolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time.

Through four key elements, fire, language, beauty, and time, she explains how our species diverged from all other animals, and how these elements made us what we are today.

I really liked this book. Recommended for anyone with an interest in evolution and human development.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 3 out of 5]

The endless fascination with human history and evolution at the largest scale is due to the fact that the human story seems so improbable. Humans are simply one species of primate, sharing with chimpanzees both a recent common ancestor and 98.6 percent of their DNA. Yet culturally, humans and chimps could not be more different. Chimpanzees do not experience cultural evolution or cumulative gains in knowledge, and therefore chimps today live in much the same way as they did thousands of years ago. Humans, on the other hand, went from nomadic hunter-gatherers to exploring the outer reaches of space in the same span of time. How can we account for such a large discrepancy between two closely related species? How is it that only humans have managed to escape the prison of genetic determinism?

Gaia Vince, in her latest book, Transcendence, provides the answer; she identifies four themes or elements around which the human story revolves. Together, they explain how we humans, “born a species entirely determined by our planet,” were able to “modify our earthly nest and control our fertility, until we became the only species to determine its own destiny.”

The story begins with human control of fire, which stimulated brain growth by unlocking the nutrients of cooked foods. Fire would allow humanity to outsource its energy needs, enabling us to transcend the limits of our biology and environment. The control of fire would lead to the invention of pottery, metallurgy, cities, and eventually to all modern technology.

The next element is language. Just as biological evolution requires high-fidelity copying of genetic information, with the occasional random mutation, cultural evolution requires the high-fidelity copying and transmission of stories and ideas through language. Unlike the slow timescales of biological evolution, however, cultural evolution is not dependent on random mutation; instead, ideas are consciously shaped and quickly improved upon.

The third element is beauty, which provides subjective meaning to our lives through its expression in art, music, literature, architecture, philosophy, religion, and more. Additionally, our desire for beautiful objects, apart from their functionality, is one of the primary catalysts for economic exchange.

The fourth and final element is time, which allows us to contemplate the past and plan for the future. Unlike other animals, humans can think ahead, using reason, to make predictions about future events and to assess the accuracy of those predictions, leading to the development of science and experiment and greater control of our environment.

Other animals lack these essential elements of cultural evolution. Animals cannot control fire and outsource their biological energy needs; they cannot transcend the present moment to contemplate time and future events and plan alternative behaviors; they cannot, through language, express abstract ideas related to the contemplation of their own thinking; and they do not value objects simply for their beauty, independent of their functionality. And so animals cannot evolve culturally, whereas humans, through these four elements, can.

This is an interesting way to present the human story, and Vince should be commended on the effort. However, the book is not without its limitations. First, its originality could be questioned; in other accounts of human “big history,” all of the elements Vince addresses—fire, language, beauty, and time/reason—are usually addressed in a similar manner, albeit not organized thematically by chapter.

Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, for example, provides a similar account. Harari describes human cultural evolution in terms of a “cognitive revolution” that resulted in abstract thinking, language, reason, science, etc. The reader of Transcendence might wonder how Vince’s four elements are not simply part of this “cognitive revolution.” The control of fire, the contemplation of time, reason, and beauty, and the transmission of ideas through language are all cognitive tasks. And so you’re not getting any special insights from this book that you would not also get from a book like Sapiens. In fact, many of the ideas and studies in the book are familiar, and I constantly got the feeling that I had read all of this before.

Second, you lose something by deciding not to present the human story as a chronological account, as the narrative jumps back and forth and feels like a series of articles rather than a true narrative.

And finally, the book is short on a host of important historical, political, and economic details, and it does not cover much of anything regarding the history of ideas or philosophy. If you believe, as I do, that ideas are powerful drivers of change, you might be disappointed to find a lack of information on important historical revolutions in human thought.

Verdict: A well-written account of human history that correctly identifies the key elements driving cultural evolution, with fascinating details for any reader that is new to the subject. Otherwise, the book falls short in terms of originality and delivers few new insights for experienced readers.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vince covers much of the same ground that Harari covers in Sapiens but focuses and expands the role of other factors of evolution such as beauty and art, in other words, culture, as the subtitle suggests. I enjoyed her grasp of her subject and clarity of her reporting of her survey of evolution.

I have to admit, I didn't take cave paintings as having much importance in our history until I read this book.

[Jeff Chay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meandering but not quite mundane take on the story of human cultural evolution.

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Cumulative cultural evolution has proven a game changer in the story of life on Earth. Instead of our evolution being driven solely by changes to environment and genes, culture also plays its part. Cultural evolution shares much with biological evolution. Genetic evolution relies on variation, transmission, and differential survival. All three are there with cultural evolution. The main difference is that in biological evolution, they are operational mostly at the level of the individual, whereas for cultural, group selection is more important than individual selection, as we shall see. It is our collective human culture, even more than our individual intelligence, that makes us smart."

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time was an interesting book. A cross-disciplinary work; the writing here touches on the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology and psychology, and psychology and social psychology.

Author Gaia Vince is a freelance British environmental journalist, broadcaster and non-fiction author with British and Australian citizenship. She writes for The Guardian, and, in a column called Smart Planet, for BBC Online. She was previously news editor of Nature and online editor of New Scientist.

Gaia Vince:


The book gets off to a good start, with a well-written introduction. Vince mentions a man named Neil Harbisson; who has a brain implant that allows him to "hear" colours.

Vance begins with the story of early life on Earth, before moving on to early hominids. The writing then moves in a somewhat chronological fashion afterward. She describes the thesis of the book in the intro:

"Our extraordinary evolution is driven by four key agents, which I describe in the following sections: Fire, Word, Beauty, and Time.
Fire describes how we outsource our energy costs to escape our biological limitations and extend our physical capabilities. Word investigates the role of information in our success: the use of language to accurately transmit and store complex cultural knowledge and communicate ideas between minds. Language is a social glue that binds us with joint stories, and enables us to make better predictions and decide who to trust based on their reputations. Beauty encapsulates the importance of meaning in our activities, which enables us to coalesce around shared beliefs and identities. Our artistic expression produces cultural speciation—tribalism between and within our societies—but also enables the trade in resources, genes, and ideas that prevents genetic speciation, while leading to bigger, better-connected societies with fancier technologies. Lastly, Time underlies our quest for objective, rational explanations for natural processes. The combination of knowledge and curiosity has driven us further than any other animal: we’ve developed the science to order the world and our place in it, becoming a connected global humanity."

The scope of the book is quite large, and Vince did a decent job of covering the material presented here. She writes with an engaging style, and the book should be accessible to even the scientifically illiterate layperson. Good stuff!
The topics covered in the book had a lot of overlap with Yuval Noah Harari's "Sapiens" series, which I also enjoyed.

Some more of what is covered here by Vince includes:
• The creation myths universal to all cultures
• The role of fire in our evolutionary history; the increased size of our brains
• The early invention and usage of tools
• Communication and language
• Theory of mind; the hidden doll experiment
• Social trust; Dunbar's number
• The role of gossip in norm enforcement
• Prestige: reputation, social proof, and influence that affects people's decision-making
• Art
• Tribalism; in-group/out-group dichotomies
• "Honour" cultures
• The invention of money as a medium of exchange
• The creation of modern time-keeping

Stories are also briefly covered here. People are inherently story-telling creatures. We have developed inborn wiring that sees us paint the world around us into narratives. Vince writes:

"Information told through stories is far more memorable —22 times more, according to one study8—because multiple parts of the brain are activated for narratives. A list of facts only activates the language processing areas of the brain (Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, where words are ascribed meaning). However, the same information conveyed through a story also activates the brain areas relevant to the narrative: if the story involves jumping or running, the motor cortex lights up; whereas if it mentions someone’s satin blouse, the sensory part of the brain is activated. Our brains react as though we were living the story and experiencing it firsthand. In this way, a storyteller can implant emotions, thoughts, and ideas into the minds of the audience, making them feel as though they are experiencing the same events. In fact, scans show that the storyteller and the listeners’ brains actually start to synchronize during storytelling—neurologists describe it as “speaker-listener neural coupling.”9 In other words, our brains have evolved to understand the world through narrative, making stories phenomenally powerful cultural tools—another mutually reinforcing geneculture coevolution. We weave narrative around all of life’s events, we make sense of the world and our own lives through stories, and many of us give authorship of this ongoing saga to supernatural creators."

Unfortunately, although much of the writing here was decent, I have a few bones to pick. Vince's writing saw the inclusion of her personal politics (somehow) to the book. I really dislike when science books do this, and I always penalize them for it. She manages to drop in a few snide remarks about Donald Trump's "racism," as well as makes many attempts to paint anthropology with a feminist lens, for some reason... She also manages to shoehorn in a substantial amount of partisan themes and jargon; including some derogatory commentary on conservatives.

She's got a bit of writing on page 186 that bemoans the patriarchal nature of our societies. She mentions: "sexual equality and pair-bonding were two of the most important evolutionary changes to our social organization as we diverged from our primate ancestry."
While humans are a pair-bonding species, we are also a "tournament" species. This is evidenced by the marked degree of dimorphism between the sexes. This is conveniently not mentioned by Vince. Much of the patriarchal nature of society that she complains about falls under the rubric of tournament behaviour and male competition.

She also includes this bit of writing: "There is no scientific basis for the belief that a person’s skin color or sex has any affect on their morality or intelligence beyond that imposed by society through social norms." Kind of a slippery and factually incorrect statement (at least concerning intelligence), as there are group-level differences in intelligence between the races, as well as the sexes. Basically, decades of large-scale intelligence testing; via SATs, IQ tests, and other tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices have identified broad-based trends in disparate group performances. Psychometric tests of intelligence consistently show average differences among racial and ethnic groups. On average; Asians score higher than whites, whites score higher than Hispanics, and Hispanics score higher than blacks. The average black-white difference is about 15 points—about one standard deviation on the normal curve, essentially the same difference as the SAT gap.
So differences do exist, but the reason(s) for them are a matter of debate.
And although there is no difference in the average intelligence of men and women, the distributive curve is not the same between the sexes. Women cluster more towards the mean, while men have a more "fat-tailed" distribution. Men and women also perform differently at the group level in tests of mental rotation. Mental rotation is an important intelligence factor, especially for mathematical reasoning.
See Richard J. Haier's The Intelligent Brain for more on this.


********************

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time was a well-written and presented book; for the most part. I enjoyed much of the writing here. However, it's too bad the author had to weigh in with her personal political opinions.
Points deducted for this, as it was a superfluous addition to the topics covered, and greatly reduced my enjoyment of the book.
I found this particularly ironic, considering that she mentions the topic of personal biases a few times in the book; apparently unaware of her own biases...
3 stars.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘You are smart, but when alone, you are fairly powerless. We live our lives utterly dependent on countless strangers for our survival. Men and women have toiled to make and assemble the constituents of my lunch, clothes, furniture, house, road, city, state, and world beyond me. These many cooperating, collaborating strangers have themselves relied on thousands upon thousands of other people, living and dead, to shape the lives they lead. And yet there is no contract, no plan, and no common purpose to our 7 billion lives….’

Is destiny a matter of chance? Or, is it a matter of choice?

It is incredibly thorny to discern the accurate raison d'être for the creation of the universe and human race, since we cannot suppose this, anchored in the current theory of Big Bang and evolution alone. Our universe has an enormous extension which one cannot even urge to think of, and on the word of ongoing research it is familiar knowledge that the universe is still expanding. We do not know what is there at the end of the universe, or, even if there is something like a supposed end. Resarchers are talking about the possibilities of multiverses. And, we have imperfect resources of knowledge and technology to know about the complete multiverses.

Plainly, ‘Transcendence’ is the act of rising above something to a higher state. The word itself, comes from the Latin prefix ‘trans’, implying "beyond," and the word ‘scandare’, meaning "to climb." When you achieve transcendence, you have gone ahead of commonplace limitations.

Gaia Vince, in her book speaks of this very act of growing – from Dryopithecus, the ancestors of both man and apes to the all-conquering Homo Sapien. She speaks of the chronicle of evolution – not only of man, but also of his mind and its possibilities.

Man’s astounding evolution is driven by four principal mediators, which the author describes in her book. They are Fire, Word, Beauty, and Time.

The fourteen-chapter book carved up in five sections, is as follows:

Section I
GENESIS:
1. Conception
2. Birth

Section II
FIRE
3. Landscaping
4. Brain Building
5. Cultural Levers

Section III
WORD
6. Story
7. Language
8. Telling

Section IV
BEAUTY
9. Belonging
10. Trinkets and Treasures
11. Builders

Section V
TIME
12. Timekeepers
13. Reason
14. Homni

The author upholds that each culture has its personal creation allegory to explain our origins, to make sense of the implausible unlikeliness of a talking ape that is inquisitive enough to devise fantastical stories about how it came to be.

The truth is no less extraordinary.

Human evolution began with primates. Primate development diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago. Various divergences among apes, gibbons, orangutans occurred during this period, with Homini (including early humans and chimpanzees) separating from Gorillini (gorillas) about 8 millions years ago. Humans and chimps then separated about 7.5 million years ago.

One is awestruck with the simplicity of the author’s tone when she says:

‘We can thank the heavens for our biggest evolutionary break. One day, in late June,2 66 million years ago, a meteorite so massive that it dwarfed Mount Everest, traveling at 14 kilometers per second (20 times faster than a bullet), plunged into the Yucatan Peninsula in present-day Mexico.

The impact was so extreme, so rapid, that the meteorite reached Earth still intact, exerting a pressure wave on the atmosphere in front of it that was so intense that it began excavating the crater before the space rock even hit. On impact, the asteroid punched a 20-mile hole into the ground, deep enough to pierce the Earth’s mantle, and sent shock waves across the planet that generated volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, and blizzards of fire.

What life survived the impact was mostly wiped out by the punishing global climate change that followed. Dinosaurs, which had dominated Earth for millions of years, disappeared; this ecological vacancy was filled by our mammal ancestors.’

As the reader finds, throughout this book, Man’s accomplishment as a species has long been tied to the shifting nature of his environment and to the dimension and contour of his societies. These are reciprocally connected. Rapid climate change and population expansions or contractions result in ruptures in human modernization and cultural activity—or their opposite.

Through it all, we experimented and learned and we taught each other the tricks of survival. We spread across the globe, inhabiting all the various geographic niches of our world, and our genes obligingly adapted. We were born a species entirely determined by our planet.

As our culture developed, we began to modify our earthly nest and control our fertility, until we became the only species to determine its own destiny.

Thereafter the author moves on through this transformation analyzing four key elements.

1) Fire illustrates how we farm out our energy costs to flee our biological restraints and broaden our physical potentials.

2) Word inspects the position of information in our achievement: the exercise of language to precisely broadcast and hoard multifaceted cultural data and correspond ideas between minds. Language is a communal adhesive that binds us with joint stories, and enables us to make better predictions and decide who to trust based on their reputations.

3) Beauty encapsulates the import of meaning in our activities, which enables us to band together shared beliefs and identities. Man’s artistic air produces cultural speciation—tribalism between and within our societies—but also facilitates the trade in resources, genes, and ideas that prevents genetic speciation, while leading to bigger, better-connected societies with fancier technologies.

4) Lastly, Time elicits our pursuit for objective, cogent explanations for natural processes.

The union of knowledge and curiosity has driven us further than any other animal: we’ve developed the science to order the world and our place in it, becoming a linked global civilization.

It is the interweaving of these four threads that creates the amazing nature of us and explains how we operate as we do.

The book is delightfully written, with a bounty of anecdotes and matter-of-fact explications. The author also makes calculated forecasts about where human civilizatiuon might be headed.

The book concludes on an optimistic note, unlike many similar texts which read like doomsday handbooks.

I scrupulously enjoyed the experience.

[Gemma Field · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not saying that this is the worst book I've ever read, but it's pretty close. Even calling it pseudo-science is insulting to the quacks. Although the initial concept, that we are 'evolving ourselves' is interested, the text quickly degenerates into anecdotes, uncited claims, Social Darwinism and occasionally racism.

[Merve Büker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gaia Vince’in Transandans kitabı, insanlığın evrimini yalnızca biyolojik değil; kültürel, teknolojik ve sosyal açılardan da ele alan kapsamlı bir metin. Homo sapiens’in iş birliği, dil ve teknoloji sayesinde nasıl doğanın sınırlarını aştığını iddialı bir çerçevede tartışıyor.

Kitap üzerine karmaşık hislerim var. İnsanlığın toplumsal ve kültürel evrimini detaylı biçimde aktarması değerli; fakat kolektif zekâ sayesinde doğayı aşma tezi çoğu yerde indirgemeci bir tona bürünüyor. Ayrıca bilimsel kanıtların yerine “muhtemelen” ya da “bence” gibi ifadelerin sık kullanılması, metni yüzeyselleştiriyor.

En büyük sorun ise tekrarlar. Benzer örneklerle konunun sürekli pekiştirilmesi, okuma zevkini azaltıyor.

Sonuç olarak Transandans, insanlığın ortak aklını ve kültürel evrimini güçlü bir hikâyeye dönüştürüyor; fakat yer yer yüzeyselleşen ve tekrar eden anlatımı, kitabın etkisini sınırlıyor.

[Doa'a Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب بخيل جدا في ايفاء وعوده

[Leandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I don’t believe that we were created specially, [that] we were made specially humans. I don’t believe in the idea that we were made in the image of a god. I’m a scientist. I think that we are simply a twig on this huge evolutionary tree of life.”
-Gaia Vince, Podcast: 5×15, “Transcendence – How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty and Time – Gaia Vince,” 21 March 2020

Gaia Vince attempts to answer in her book, Transcendence (2020), how humankind became the dominating species of the modern world. Rather than analyze a strict, linear timeline of events, Vince displays humanity’s evolution as a fluid combination of ingredients. The image with which she leaves the reader mirrors that of the woven friendship bracelets from everyone’s youth, overlapping with rich colors and patterns. Vince states, “It all rests on a special relationship between the evolution of our genes, environment, and culture” (p. 4). She refers to these three factors as our human evolutionary triad, asserting that cultural change enacts biological change and vice versa. The book’s structure is organized into four agents: fire, word, beauty, and time. The discovery of fire influenced our brain size. The language we speak affects our sight and mindset. Humans’ strange fascination with beauty led to global trade. And the invention of the bicycle reduced marriages between blood relations and, as a result, the French grew taller. These are just a few phenomena described in Transcendence that may not seem like it at first glance but perform in concert with and add to human evolution.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about our species’ early beginnings, and how we evolved to be the only ones of our kind to survive and thrive. While topics on the environment and its relationship with socio-cultural variables fascinate me on their own, I attribute moments of emotion (humor, frustration, awe) and my retention of the material to the author’s voice and delivery. Vince does a wonderful execution of coupling heavy facts and concepts with relatable modern-day references. For instance...

Read the full review at: http://greatgraydays.home.blog/2020/0...

[r · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Fire is chemistry made visible: a marriage of oxygen and fuel in an exuberance of heat and light. This is the same basic reaction that sustains all life-it is how we get energy from our food-but in living cells, it is called metabolism and is a slow stepwise process, whereas fiery combustion is lightning-fast and intensely energetic.”

“When we describe something as artificial, it is something taken from nature and rearranged by us, and what are we if not part of nature? Our cultural evolution is part of our biology just as its products are a part of the new Earth we've helped create.”

“The human evolutionary triad-genes, environment, and culture are all implicated in the way the network is shaped, and this determines how we operate as a society.”

[Robert Kenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first glance, this book appears to have numerous citations, but when you actually reference them in the back of the book, the “source” is often just a further explanation of the author’s opinion or a quote from a celebrity. It’s pretty sad that, in a book of science, she considers those to be valid references/source materials. There are some interesting sections, particularly in the first half of the book, but it becomes increasingly personal and subjective as it progresses. It’s unfortunate, because many of the topics discussed are important and fascinating. I wish someone more objective would have investigated these topics more thoroughly and backed up the content with actual research.

[Ashley Barratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a clever and confronting book: cognitively challenging and deeply pedagogical it provides an assessment of mankind from four lenses. Those lenses: fire, language, beauty and time go on to describe the rise over the last 250 years of ‘a hyper-cooperative mass of humanity’ - Homo omnis.

This is a complex and clever book which is of its time in a world confronting global challenges and attempting global action.

Recommended

[Jens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Central to the book is the concept of cultural evolution, one which in general I find not much more than a suggestive metaphor when used properly. In this book, though, it is so much overused it becomes pretty much meaningless, or nothing more than a synonym for cultural change in general. At one point the author writes that building shelters is an adaptation to survive in cold environments, having culturally evolved. Yes, and bears evolved to shit in the woods. Such a statement explains hardly anything. Obviously, shelters are “adaptive” in a superficial sense but is it really an explanation to say that there was some diversity in coping with cold weather, and that cultures that coped by building shelters outcompeted those that tried to rub themselves warm or something? In some cases, such an explanation can help. For example, when farmers outcompete hunter-gatherers by growing in size at a faster rate. The analogy to biological evolution works better here because there is some variation in forms of social organisation (alleles) that perpetuates through time (is heritable), and where some forms have a selective advantage over others, thereby increasing in frequency in the total population of forms of organisation. This provides a somewhat interesting analogy that may explain elements of culture. But when instead everything is considered adaptive, the theory of (cultural) evolution becomes a mere tautology. What is adaptive evolves, and what has evolved is adaptive. Not helpful.

You see, the theory of evolution is a powerful theory but also one that can easily trick you into believing you explained something. An armchair biologist can look at some biological or cultural phenomenon and can usually easily think of some reason for why it is adaptive. Take dancing. Why do humans universally like to dance? Ah, says the armchair biologist, because it bonds individuals into a group, ensuring the survival of the group and making the dancing genes spread in the population; therefore it’s adaptive. Of course, but the real question is why dancing bonds individuals in the first place. Why does music activate the brain’s motor system in a way that is enjoyable when done together? What is the behaviour from which dancing evolved in pre-dancing hominids? Why don’t we just groom each other, like monkeys do? Is our lack of hair a reason for having less parasites and therefore less use for grooming? Etc. You have to ask good questions, test hypotheses, and then provide serious evidence before you can credibly claim an evolutionary reason for a phenomenon. This book, on the other hand, is full of superficial, plausible-sounding evolutionary reasoning that “explains” every cultural “adaptation” thinkable but hardly ever does the effort to back it up with good evidence.

[An · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part "Fire," wasn’t particularly remarkable, but Parts 2 , "Beauty" had a much broader scope, especially in discussing tribalism. I really enjoyed reading those chapters. However, I was disappointed in Part 4 chapter titled "Reason," when the author mentioned Hypatia of Alexandria being lynched and brutally murdered "for having an inquiring mind" This felt like a gross simplification of the events; her murder was much more politically motivated I am afraid. I would have appreciated a dedicated chapter on societal regression as well.
3.75/5

[Kirstin Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a number of "macro" histories and this is one of the best. Seeing humanity's ongoing changes as part of a pattern makes me feel less uneasy (though as always it sucks to be an individual during any period of upheaval). I would have liked to see a few more notes in the last chapter (for example I am interested in what brain changes might mean our future will look like).

I would not call this an "easy" read, but worthwhile.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe my favorite topic — human evolution and its implications for the future. I liked that the author was British-centric, although the US was also brought up. I liked the different perspective being British brought to this. The author was spot on regarding the US descent into hatefulness and fascism, correctly targeting the 45th president.

[Elliott Dooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible read.

I'm struck by how dense the content if this book is. Each page feels like an entire PhD's worth of knowledge has been distilled down to a single A5 leaf.

While similar to Harari's Sapiens, in terms of breadth, Transcends goes deeper into not only the history but the science behind why we are the way we are. The sheer deatail of this book is outstanding though it results in it being quite a lengthy read!

Bravo to Gaia Vince, she's a master!

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a very bad habit of pausing in non-fiction books like these to look up the interesting 'fun facts' that the author includes to support the whole thesis of the book, only to spend roughly 30+ minutes educating myself on them because I find them so fascinating. Vince folds in the information she's collated for her book into the main text seamlessly, inviting me to want to know more about each of them. It took me a bit of time to finish reading just from my own little researching on the side, but I still found myself coming back to the book to learn more.

Encapsulated in the pages of this book, the very unique human experiences that jumpstarted the levels of our species' evolution - both subtly and not so subtly - are laid out in a way that I never would have thought to think of. Many aspects like language, our usage of fire, how we perceive things in our environment have never been things I've stopped to ponder as to how they shaped us into who we are, but this book gave that insight in ways that were easy to consume and fascinated me. I especially loved learning about language, and how our environment can impact how different languages sound or are passed down through the generations.

Even if non-fiction isn't your bag, if you've ever been curious about how humans managed to get to this point in our evolution this book is well worth the read!