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Steven H's Reviews > Origins by Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin (July 1, 1979) Paperback
Origins by Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin (July 1, 1979) Paperback
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AN EXCELLENT "OVERVIEW" OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (CIRCA 1977)
Richard Leakey has written/cowritten other books such as 'People of the Lake,' 'The Making of Mankind,' 'Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human,' 'Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures,' etc. This book was published in 1977.
They note, "For the higher primates, with their ability to see that world in color and in three dimensions, and, also to pick up and manipulate objects, the world becomes more than just a three-dimensional color pattern. It is also a world full of identifiable objects. Monkeys, apes, and human beings are almost the only creatures that fiddle with things, picking them up, turning them over, inspecting them visually, by smell and by touch...
"The implications of this new mental dimension are vast... The opportunities for learning about the world, rather than simply reacting to particular shapes in a pre-programmed fashion, are enhanced enormously. And, ultimately, the ability to view objects as separate entities is an absolute prerequisite for the evolution of language, which is possibly the one unique human attribute. In a very real sense, we owe our capacity for speech to the higher primates' reaching out to analyse their three-dimensional world." (Pg. 45)
The observe, "At least part of the reason for a lengthy childhood in humans is the crown of evolutionary achievement we carry in our heads---the human brain. An uneasy compromise has been evolved, balancing the protection necessary for the delicate, developing brain, especially in its early stages, against the safe delivery of the baby's head through its mother's pelvis. A brain that was fully developed at birth would escape the potential hazards of environmental damage before its development had been completed. But such a brain would make impossible demands on the engineering of the birth canal in the mother's pelvis... The path taken by the evolving human structure was a middle one: an infant with a relatively well-developed brain is delivered through a canal that has caused the pelvis to widen... but not so much as to severely impede walking." (Pg. 149-150)
They argue, "It used to be said that many animals KNOW, but only humans KNOW THEY KNOW. For chimpanzees at least, this is probably an injustice. To know in the 'human' sense is to be self-aware... to be aware of oneself as an individual among others... But just as humans are able, through self-awareness, to put themselves in someone else's position, it is a fair guess that to some extent at least, chimpanzees can do the very same thing with one another." (Pg. 189)
One might have hoped in this book for more details about the fossils Leakey and his famous parents had been involved in discovering; but the book is a well-illustrated and photographed introduction to human evolution, and is well worth reading for anyone interested in that subject.
Richard Leakey has written/cowritten other books such as 'People of the Lake,' 'The Making of Mankind,' 'Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human,' 'Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures,' etc. This book was published in 1977.
They note, "For the higher primates, with their ability to see that world in color and in three dimensions, and, also to pick up and manipulate objects, the world becomes more than just a three-dimensional color pattern. It is also a world full of identifiable objects. Monkeys, apes, and human beings are almost the only creatures that fiddle with things, picking them up, turning them over, inspecting them visually, by smell and by touch...
"The implications of this new mental dimension are vast... The opportunities for learning about the world, rather than simply reacting to particular shapes in a pre-programmed fashion, are enhanced enormously. And, ultimately, the ability to view objects as separate entities is an absolute prerequisite for the evolution of language, which is possibly the one unique human attribute. In a very real sense, we owe our capacity for speech to the higher primates' reaching out to analyse their three-dimensional world." (Pg. 45)
The observe, "At least part of the reason for a lengthy childhood in humans is the crown of evolutionary achievement we carry in our heads---the human brain. An uneasy compromise has been evolved, balancing the protection necessary for the delicate, developing brain, especially in its early stages, against the safe delivery of the baby's head through its mother's pelvis. A brain that was fully developed at birth would escape the potential hazards of environmental damage before its development had been completed. But such a brain would make impossible demands on the engineering of the birth canal in the mother's pelvis... The path taken by the evolving human structure was a middle one: an infant with a relatively well-developed brain is delivered through a canal that has caused the pelvis to widen... but not so much as to severely impede walking." (Pg. 149-150)
They argue, "It used to be said that many animals KNOW, but only humans KNOW THEY KNOW. For chimpanzees at least, this is probably an injustice. To know in the 'human' sense is to be self-aware... to be aware of oneself as an individual among others... But just as humans are able, through self-awareness, to put themselves in someone else's position, it is a fair guess that to some extent at least, chimpanzees can do the very same thing with one another." (Pg. 189)
One might have hoped in this book for more details about the fossils Leakey and his famous parents had been involved in discovering; but the book is a well-illustrated and photographed introduction to human evolution, and is well worth reading for anyone interested in that subject.
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Origins by Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin (July 1, 1979) Paperback.
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September 27, 2024
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