Di Quanti Amici Abbiamo Bisogno? Frivolezze E Curiosità Evoluzionistiche (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Having its origins in newspaper columns written over 14 years, this book ranges over many subjects in the sociobiological approach to evolution. An important theme in the book is Dunbar's Number, the number of friends the human being has evolved to maintain at any one time: 150. Dunbar mentions social networking sites on p. 22, saying that people with over 200 connections know little or nothing about most of the individuals on their list. Hmm. In any case, he does show that tribal clans, Xmas card lists, effective businesses, military fighting units, academic communities, etc. tend to circulate around the 150 mark. The book contains all sorts of insights into human behaviour that can be interpreted by understanding us as the most evolved primates. What distinguishes us from other primates is that our big brains are able to carry out complex social thinking, up to the level of fifth-order intentionality: I intend (1) you to believe (2) that I want (3) you to suppose (4) that I love (5) you. It occurred to me that this is a kind of (ultimately limited) recursiveness in thinking. This is good summer reading: an easy-going style, lucid explanations, and no footnotes. After 125 pages of attempting to get through this I finally just stopped. It's full of interesting ideas presented as known facts, and rarely (if ever) supported by studies and research. He makes the unforgivable mistake of contrasting the "left brain" and "right brain", uses correlation to prove causation, and seems to only half-bake many of his ideas (or at least only half-explain them). This book tries to peg itself as science, but it comes off as pseudo-science. Disappointing considering Dunbar is the Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford.It got me through my plane ride back from Vegas, but if I'm not looking for time to burn I won't finish it.
What do You think about Di Quanti Amici Abbiamo Bisogno? Frivolezze E Curiosità Evoluzionistiche (2011)?
I learned five new things in the intro of this book alone. SO COOL.
—emylic
Funny and interesting. Some good points, worth re-reading.
—Nstevens107
Evolutionary quirks make fun reading materials.
—GIovannat
