Evolution: What Everyone Needs to Know®

by Robin I.M. Dunbar

Evolution is one of the most important processes in life. It not only explains the detailed history of life on earth, but its scope also extends into many aspects of our own contemporary behavior-who we are and how we got to be here, our psychology, our cultures-and greatly impacts modern advancements in medicine and conservation biology. Perhaps its most important claim for science is its ability to provide an overarching framework that integrates the many life sciences into a single unified whole. Yet, evolution-evolutionary biology in particular-has been, and continues to be, regarded with suspicion by many. Understanding how and why evolution works, and what it can tell us, is perhaps the single most important contribution to the public perception of science.This book provides an overview of the basic theory and showcases how widely its consequences reverberate across the life sciences, the social sciences and even the humanities. In this book, Robin Dunbar uses examples drawn from plant life, animals and humans to illustrate these processes. Evolutionary science has important advantages. Most of science deals with the microscopic world that we cannot see and invariably have difficulty understanding, but evolution deals with the macro-world in which we live and move. That invariably makes it much easier for the lay audience to appreciate, understand and enjoy. What Everyone Needs to Know® takes a broad approach to evolution, dealing both with the core theory itself and its impact on different aspects of the world we live in, from the iconic debates of the nineteenth century, to viruses and superbugs, to human evolution and behavior.

Genres: Evolution, Science, Biology, Psychology

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2020

About the author

Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar FBA FRAI is a British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist and a specialist in primate behaviour.

Dunbar's academic and research career includes the University of Bristol, University of Cambridge from 1977 until 1982, and University College London from 1987 until 1994. In 1994, Dunbar became Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at University of Liverpool, but he left Liverpool in 2007 to take up the post of Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford.

Reviews

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robin Dunbar knows so much, and is so good at telling what he knows.
In How Many Friends Does One Person Need? and in Evolution: What Everyone Needs to Know, Dunbar offers well-documented, nuts-and-bolts explanations about the many aspects of evolution, especially human evolution. It turns out that Darwin only scratched the surface.
There is inclusive context for the meaning of “Dunbar’s number,” namely, 150 people, the repeatedly confirmed (approximate) top limit for the number of people an individual can know individually, trust, and engage in a socially meaningful way.
Dunbar gives all the scoop about the many ways in which human beings are unique in the ancient and modern worlds, and the many connections we have with the great apes. Biologically, we are much more similar to chimpanzees than most people could bring themselves to guess.
Part of Dunbar’s generous writing in both books is a minutely careful examination of the intersection of religion and evolution. That’s worth a read.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[Henri Tournyol du Clos · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely interesting and enlightening book which I heartily recommend even if you have already read extensevely on the subject, but with three weaknesses:

1 - there are no notes and many study results are simply not sourced
2 - the part that deals with the author's own major contribution to the field (the relationship between social group size and brain size) is surprisingly weak and lacks clarity
3 - cell level biology could be better explained.

[Jiri Chaloupka · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most comprehensive book on evolution

[Tai Odunsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 stars but the audiobook voice is slow and unbearable