Illuminating Human Evolution: 150 Years after Darwin

ISBN-13: 9789811932489 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Opis

This book presents a series of perspectives showing the current knowledge about human evolution. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, in which he explicitly addresses the natural origin of the human species, this collective work reviews current and diverse aspects of human evolution: from psychology, linguistics, genomics, paleontology, artistic expression or sexual selection. It also offers a historical, social and ideological context of what is often considered to be Darwin's second great work after The Origin of Species.

Although current research is concentrated largely on fossils and genomes, this book also deals with the main points Darwin centered his attention on; comparative morphology and psychology, and sexual selection. It also covers other new aspects, such as the origin of art, social structure and social learning. With contributions from leading experts in their respective fields, the book guides readers to the study of the social context of Darwin and his time, and the state of the art of studies on human evolution and sexual selection, considering all aspects that Darwin examined, including those that emerged later and now are important disciplines in our understanding of our own evolution.

The English translation of parts of this book from its Spanish original manuscript was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

Spis treści

1. Light would be thrown: Human Evolution 150 years after Darwin
2. The Historical Background to Darwin’s Descent of Man
3. Ways to See the World: Darwin’s Dilemas
4. The Problem of Design in Darwin’s Proposal: a Historical View
5. Darwin under Suspicion. Consideration about the Representation of Darwinism in the Spanish Press: ABC Newspaper (1909-1982)
6. Human Origins: Darwin and the Psychology
7. Human Evolution. Linguistic Evidence.
8. Human Evolution in Eurasia. The Fossils that Darwin Did not Know
9. The Genomic Evidence for Human Evolution.
10. The Adaptations that have Made us Human: Morphology
11. The Adaptations that have Made us Human. The Genome
12. How Humans Evolved? A Cultural Approach.
13. Art as a human element
14. Sexual Selection: Behind Darwin's Legacy
15. Genetic and Cultural Evolution of the Mate-Choice
16. The Genetic (evolutionary) Future of Humanity

O autorze

Jaume Bertranpetit 

Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Barcelona  

Founder Member of the Institut of Evolutionary Biology (UPF-CSIC)

Juli Peretó 

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of València 

Member of Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology research group, I2SysBio (UVEG-CSIC) 

Founder co-director I2SysBio (2016-2020)