Tales of the ex-apes : how we think about human evolution

235 Pages·2015·1.14 MB·English

by  Marks

Tales of the Ex-Apes
How We Think about
Human Evolution
Jonathan Marks
university of california press
Tales of the Ex-Apes
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Tales of the Ex-Apes
How We Think about
Human Evolution
Jonathan Marks
university of california press
University of California Press, one of the most
distinguished university presses in the United States,
enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship
in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its
activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and
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institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2015 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marks, Jonathan (Jonathan M.), author.
Tales of the ex-apes : how we think about human
evolution / Jonathan Marks.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-28581-1 (cloth, alk. paper) — isbn
978-0-520-28582-8 (pbk., alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-520-
96119-7 (electronic)
1. Social evolution. 2. Human evolution. I. Title.
gn360.m37 2015
599.93′8—dc23 2015006790
Manufactured in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmen-
tally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC
Press has printed this book on Natures Natural, a fi ber
that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the
minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r 1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
For Peta, who made this possible
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contents
Preface ix
1. Science
1
2. History and Morality
27
3. Evolutionary Concepts
53
4. How to Think about Evolution
Non-reductively
80
5. How Our Ancestors Transgressed the
Boundaries of Apehood
107
6. Human Evolution as Bio-cultural Evolution
129
7. Human Nature/Culture
156
Notes 183
Index 217
preface
This book is not about paleoanthropology. It does not analyze
the supraorbital torus of Homo erectus, or the feet of Australopithecus
sediba. This book is about how to make sense of information like
that; it’s about thinking. Further, it is premised on an uncontro-
versial point. Humans are universally interested in who they are
and where they come from. Sharks, elephants, bats, chimpan-
zees, and other species are not. Or if they are, it is only in ways
that are inaccessible and unfathomable to us, and always will be.
This fact immediately establishes the case for human excep-
tionalism. We are diff erent from other species in that we do
attempt to situate ourselves in a social and historical universe,
and thereby make sense of our existence. We are sense-making
creatures—that is one of the functions of our most prominent
organ, the brain—and we create that sense in many diff erent
ways, culturally. The study of how people make sense of who
they are and where they came from is kinship, the oldest research
program in anthropology, which is predicated on the oldest sys-
tematic observation in anthropology, that diff erent cultures
ix