The Intelligent Genome: On the Origin of the Human Mind by Mutation and Selection

by Adolf Heschl, H. Loserl (Artist)

Overview

Do our genes determine our behavior? Do humans occupy a unique position in evolution? To clarify these provoking questions, the author takes the reader on an ambitious and entertaining journey through a variety of scientific disciplines. In doing so, he creates an image of human evolution that argues that our entire individual knowledge is determined - to the smallest detail - by phylogeny. A provoking and controversial analysis of the theory of our inability to learn something new and of the extent to which our behavior is determined by our genes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783642086489
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	12/01/2010
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2002
Pages:	355
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.28(d)

Table of Contents

Nature Explains Nurture.- 1 The Myth of a Wonder of Nature.- 2 Evolutionary Epistemology or the Difficulties of Getting Started.- 3 To Be or Not to Be.- 4 Chance as Necessity.- 5 The Indivisible Individual.- 6 L=C.- 7 The Central Dogma Reformulated.- 8 Learning: Appearances are Deceptive.- 9 Edelman’s Errors.- 10 On the Heritability of Jazzophilia.- 11 A Superfluous Law of Evolution.- 12 The “Wonder” of Language.- 13 Intelligent Sex: A Cognitivist View of Genetic Exchange Processes.- 14 How to Explain Consciousness.- 15 The True Nature of Scientific Revolutions.- 16 “Evolution Has Us in Its Grip”.- 17 The Survival of the Most Intelligent.- 18 The Cultural Struggle of Genes.- 19 Requiem for a Wonder of Nature.- Literature.- Acknowledgement of sources.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"All knowledge of the individual is located in the genome, argues Heschl. With such a radicality he goes much further than many other researchers like Richard Dawkins, the advocate of the selfish gene."

Frankfurter Allgemeine, translated from issue June 17, 1998.

"We cannot exclude the possibility that Heschl is simply right."

Josef H. Reichholf, translated from "Psychologie heute" (July 1999)

"I basically agree with Heschl's theses."

Manfred Eigen, translated from a personal letter to the author (Nov. 1999)

"Written by a trained ethologist and genetic epistemologist, and translated from the 1998 German original, The Intelligent Genome highlights how little we know about the genetic determination of human behaviour. … Although a very intense text, readers of this book may be drawn from various disciplines … . A rich source of bibliography and widely drawn quotes from famous philosophers and scientists, the book can also be a good research resource and reference book for any library collection." (Harjeet Khanna, Today’s Life Science, Vol. 14 (5), 2002)

"Burying the myth of the human miracle, the author Adolf Heschl goes beyond any known theories. … In a clear-cut scientific approach, Heschl claims that intelligence, although individually shaped throughout life, already pre-exists in the genome. … The author analyses theories of scientists such as Darwin, Lamarck or Weisman, at the same time taking a highly critical look at his own point of view. Following the road of mankind, the reader is taken on both an ambitious and entertaining journey." (Science in Africa, March, 2002)

From the Publisher