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The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve
The Shape of How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with that information.
The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends.
The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2014
About the author
H. Clark Barrett
2 books3 followersH. Clark Barrett, Ph.D. (Anthropology, University of California Santa Barbara, 1999; M.A., Anthropology, UCSB, 1995; B.A., Biology, Harvard University, 1991), is Professor of Anthropology at the UCLA College of Social Sciences.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 26, 2021
One of the idea-richest books I’ve encountered. Barrett answered most every question I had on evolutionary psychology and many more that I developed along the way. Worth the read for anyone interested in how the human mind evolved. Be prepared before you engage: the writing style can be challenging but accessible with effort.
April 30, 2018
Rating: 2/5; dnf last chapter
This subjective rating is purely on writing style, as I don't feel like I have the adequate (or claim to, because this book is way out of my field of study) background knowledge to make an objective judgement on how accurate the facts are in this book. However, just a warning to those who are not familiar with evolutionary development (or evo devo) and still want to read this book, THIS BOOK IS NOT READER FRIENDLY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT REMOTELY FAMILIAR WITH EVO DEVO. Yes, he does make a disclaimer at the beginning of the book about how some background knowledge is required to fully understand his arguments, however, the way this book was written is unnecessarily jargony and convoluted. His writing is not only full of jargon that he doesn't explain very well, but he uses unnecessarily complicated ways to get to his point (e.g., "The final possibility space that we need to consider in order to understand hill-climbing in the space of what it is possible to think is what I will call information space.") There are a few chapters, like social ontogeny and culture, that were easier understood than others. All in all, his arguments are pretty sound and interesting, however, his writing style made an already hard to understand topic close to incomprehensible and tortuous to TRY to understand.
Or maybe I was not selected by nature to have the ability to develop the complex learning adaptations needed to understand this abstruse book (ha.ha.)
This subjective rating is purely on writing style, as I don't feel like I have the adequate (or claim to, because this book is way out of my field of study) background knowledge to make an objective judgement on how accurate the facts are in this book. However, just a warning to those who are not familiar with evolutionary development (or evo devo) and still want to read this book, THIS BOOK IS NOT READER FRIENDLY FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT REMOTELY FAMILIAR WITH EVO DEVO. Yes, he does make a disclaimer at the beginning of the book about how some background knowledge is required to fully understand his arguments, however, the way this book was written is unnecessarily jargony and convoluted. His writing is not only full of jargon that he doesn't explain very well, but he uses unnecessarily complicated ways to get to his point (e.g., "The final possibility space that we need to consider in order to understand hill-climbing in the space of what it is possible to think is what I will call information space.") There are a few chapters, like social ontogeny and culture, that were easier understood than others. All in all, his arguments are pretty sound and interesting, however, his writing style made an already hard to understand topic close to incomprehensible and tortuous to TRY to understand.
Or maybe I was not selected by nature to have the ability to develop the complex learning adaptations needed to understand this abstruse book (ha.ha.)
July 17, 2016
One of the best books I've read over the past year on evolutionary psychology.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews