Too Clever for Our Own Good : Hidden Facets of Human Evolution

by Yamamoto, Kaoru

• ISBN13: 9780761837626
• ISBN10: 0761837620
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-30
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc

Summary

Too Clever for Our Own Good closely studies the phenomenon of "evolution through culture." Unlike the "evolution through genetics," typical in other creatures, this uniquely human process hinges upon making and using myriad cultural extensions of our own creation, devices both material and nonmaterial. These concrete and abstract cultural extensions, such as clothing, shelter, tools, language, ethics, and social organizations, have enormously enhanced our capacity for controlling nature, other people, and ourselves. The author draws upon his own background in the natural and social sciences to examine a wide array of human experiences, ranging from the use of concrete technological inventions to that of more symbolic extensions like logic, metaphor, and self-image. In this exploration, attention is called not only to the constructive power of these "tools," but also, and more significantly, to their often overlooked, negative consequences. The critical analysis of the role of cultural extensions in human evolution is relevant for both general readers and students or specialists in human sciences and education. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Kaoru Yamamoto is Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology at the University of Colorado and Fellow of the American Psychological Association

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. vii
List of Figures	p. viii
Prologue	p. ix
The Long March	p. 1
The Trail of the Creature	p. 1
The Upright Animal with a Big Brain	p. 2
Evolution through Culture	p. 6
Creations of the Creature	p. 13
External or Material Extensions	p. 13
Internal or Nonmaterial Extensions	p. 21
Recapitulation	p. 27
Falls the Shadow	p. 31
Focusing	p. 31
Externalization	p. 33
Decontextualization	p. 36
Spillover	p. 40
Extension Transference	p. 45
The Self-Portrait	p. 55
The Self and Its Image	p. 56
The Two Pillars of the Self	p. 62
Recapitulation	p. 65
Stories of Life	p. 69
The Storyteller	p. 69
To Remember	p. 70
To Be Remembered	p. 73
Devices of the Storyteller	p. 79
Abstraction	p. 79
Generalization	p. 81
Analogy	p. 85
The Unseen Lenses	p. 88
Root Metaphor	p. 92
Wayfarers, Beware!	p. 99
Long Detours via Alleged Shortcuts	p. 99
Lost and Confused	p. 103
Ways of Reasoning	p. 109
The Paradox of Life	p. 114
Epilogue	p. 125
References	p. 127
Index	p. 141
About the Author	p. 147
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