Social Evolution

In US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy, the authors analyze the strategic underpinnings of hegemony, assess the national security establishment that sustains dominance, consider the impact on civil-military relations, and explore the intertwining relationships between foreign policy, defense strategy, and commercial activities.

In On the Evolution of Intimacy, psychiatrist and futurist Charles Johnston addresses how our times are making possible a critical "growing up" in how we think about intimacy and gender. With intimacy, the changes he describes are as significant as those which brought us Romeo and Juliet-style romantic love. With gender, they take us beyond both the polarizing assumptions of traditional gender roles and the simplistic conclusions of a postmodern unisex ideal.

Helena Greenwood, a doctor with a Ph.D. in chemical pathology, was working in biotechnology when she was the victim of sexual assault. She survived and was scheduled to testify against her attacker until she was found brutally murdered in her garden. Everyone believed the killer was her past attacker; but there was not enough evidence to convict him, until ten years later when a local District Attorney working the "cold cases" used Helena's own DNA research to finally bring her killer to justice.

Unnatural Selection is the first book to examine the rise of the "technocentric being" - or geek - who personifies a distinct new phase in human evolution. People considered geeks often have behavioral or genetic traits that were previously considered detrimental. But the new environment of the Anthropocene period - the Age of Man - has created a kind of digital greenhouse that actually favors their traits, enabling many non-neurotypical people to bloom.

The current controversy over teaching evolution in the public schools has grabbed front-page headlines and topped news broadcasts all across the United States. In the Beginning investigates the movement that has ignited debate in state legislatures and at school board meetings. Reaching back to the origins of antievolutionism in the 1920s, and continuing to the promotion of intelligent design today, Michael Lienesch skillfully analyzes one of the most formidable political movements of the 20th century.

The new field of evolutionary philosophy, unlike its aborted predecessors of the past, is primarily concerned with understanding why Homo sapiens are philosophical in the first place. It is not focused on advocating some specific future reform, but rather in uncovering why humans are predisposed to ask so many questions which, at least at the present stage, cannot be answered.

In this fascinating exploration, geneticist Bryan Sykes turns his sights on the United States, one of the most genetically variegated countries in the world. From the blue-blooded pockets of old-WASP New England to the vast tribal lands of the Navajo, Bryan Sykes takes us on a historical genetic tour, interviewing genealogists, geneticists, anthropologists, and everyday Americans with compelling ancestral stories.

An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery. But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Ben Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities.

Robert Ardrey guides the listener on a remarkable journey of discovery through 20 million years of man's prehistory: from the days when his ancestors first emerged from the forests of Africa during the benevolent warmth and rains of the Miocene, through the unremitting drought of the Pliocene and the dramatic climactic shifts of the Pleistocene, down to those few thousand years past when man emerged at last onto the stage of recorded history as a fully evolved hunting animal.

A vibrant young Hispano woman, Shonnie Medina, inherits a breast-cancer mutation known as BRCA1.185delAG. It is a genetic variant characteristic of Jews. The Medinas knew they were descended from Native Americans and Spanish Catholics, but they did not know that they had Jewish ancestry as well. The mutation most likely sprang from Sephardic Jews hounded by the Spanish Inquisition. The discovery of the gene leads to a fascinating investigation of cultural history and modern genetics by Dr. Harry Ostrer and other experts on the DNA of Jewish populations.

This is no mere observational account. The Future of Insurance, Volume IV: Asia Rising offers actionable insights, serving as both a roadmap and inspiration for those daring to navigate the future complexities of the insurance market—whether you're an industry professional, policy-maker, or a tech-savvy individual intrigued by the dynamism of business innovation.

Are humans close to living forever? With advances in medicine and new therapies that prolong life expectancy, we are on track to make aging even more manageable. This new entry in the exciting Alice in Futureland series explores both the science and cultural impulse behind extending lifespans, and the numerous ways the quest for eternity forces us to reevaluate what it means to be human. Some experts believe that we haven’t fully realized our true human potential, and we are about to embark on an extraordinary evolutionary shift.

Over the past 100 years, gulls have been brought ashore by modernity. They now live not only on the coasts, but in our slipstream following trawlers, barges, and garbage trucks. They are more our contemporaries than most birds, living their wild lives among us in towns and cities. In many ways, they live as we do, walking the built-up world and grabbing a bite where they can. Yet this disturbs us. We’ve started fearing gulls for getting good at being among us. We see them as scavengers, not entrepreneurs; oceangoing aliens, not refugees.

Una storia prima della storia. Ossa fossili, denti, manufatti, siti preistorici e dati genetici per ricostruire l'evoluzione di un gruppo di scimmie antropomorfe che, intorno a 6 milioni di anni fa, in Africa, intrapresero l'intricato percorso evolutivo che diede origine alla nostra specie.

What can fossilized teeth tell us about our ancient life expectancy? What can big data on fossils reveal about farming's problematic role in human evolution? How can simple geometric comparisons of skull and pelvic fossils suggest an origin to our social nature? In Close Encounters with Humankind, paleoanthropologist Sang-Hee Lee explores some of our biggest evolutionary questions from unexpected new angles. Through a series of entertaining, bite-sized chapters, we gain new perspectives into our first hominin ancestors, our first steps on two feet, and more.

In The Genial Gene, Joan Roughgarden forcefully rejects ideas that have come to dominate the study of animal evolution. Building on her brilliant and innovative book Evolution's Rainbow, in which she challenged accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation, Roughgarden upends the notion of the selfish gene and the theory of sexual selection and develops a compelling and controversial alternative theory called social selection.

Caitlin Shetterly discovered the importance of GMOs the hard way. Shortly after she learned that her son had an alarming sensitivity to GMO corn, she was told that she had the same condition, and her family's daily existence changed forever. An expansion of Shetterly's viral Elle article "The Bad Seed", Modified delves deep into the heart of the matter - from the cornfields of Nebraska to the beekeeping conventions in Brussels - to shine a light on the people, the science, and the corporations behind the food we serve ourselves and our families every day.

While we joke that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, our gender differences can't compare to those of other animals. For instance: the male garden spider spontaneously dies after mating with a female more than fifty times his size. Female cichlids must guard their eggs and larvae--even from the hungry appetites of their own partners. And male blanket octopuses employ a copulatory arm longer than their own bodies to mate with females that outweigh them by four orders of magnitude. Why do these gender gulfs exist?

Already technology enables parents to select some genetic traits for their children, and soon it will be possible to begin to shape ourselves as a species. Countering loud cries of alarm, bioethics expert Ronald Green explains why our fears about genetic engineering are overblown and how we can move forward responsibly to create a better future.

People say that they trust scientists, yet evidence often takes a back seat to emotions. In fact, for issues that cause the loudest public furor - like vaccine safety - there is almost no debate in the scientific community. This audiobook examines the science behind today’s most contentious debates - including gun control, GMOs, and evolution, as well as strategies for understanding and coping with denialism.