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The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often unable to solve basic problems, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. On the other hand, human groups have produced innovative technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into environments across the globe. What has enabled us to dominate such a vast range of environments, more than any other species? As this book shows, the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains--in the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another.
Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, hunter-gatherers, neuroscientists, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Further on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and that this particular culture-gene interaction has propelled our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory.
Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, "The Secret of Our Success" explores how our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and our human uniqueness.
Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, hunter-gatherers, neuroscientists, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology. Our early capacities for learning from others produced many innovations, such as fire, cooking, water containers, plant knowledge, and projectile weapons, which in turn drove the expansion of our brains and altered our physiology, anatomy, and psychology in crucial ways. Further on, some collective brains generated and recombined powerful concepts, such as the lever, wheel, screw, and writing. Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and that this particular culture-gene interaction has propelled our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory.
Tracking clues from our ancient past to the present, "The Secret of Our Success" explores how our cultural and social natures produce a collective intelligence that explains both our species' immense success and our human uniqueness.
456 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 15, 2015
About the author
Joseph Henrich
11 books315 followersJoseph Henrich is an anthropologist. He is the Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology of Harvard University and a professor of the department.
Joseph Henrich's research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making and culture, and includes topics related to cultural learning, cultural evolution, culture-gene coevolution, human sociality, prestige, leadership, large-scale cooperation, religion and the emergence of complex human institutions. Methodologically, he integrates ethnographic tools from anthropology with experimental techniques drawn from psychology and economics. His area interests include Amazonia, Chile and Fiji.
Joseph Henrich's research focuses on evolutionary approaches to psychology, decision-making and culture, and includes topics related to cultural learning, cultural evolution, culture-gene coevolution, human sociality, prestige, leadership, large-scale cooperation, religion and the emergence of complex human institutions. Methodologically, he integrates ethnographic tools from anthropology with experimental techniques drawn from psychology and economics. His area interests include Amazonia, Chile and Fiji.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 229 reviews
June 28, 2016
The Secret of Our Success is one of these books that really shines light on the evolution of human species. Written by Joseph Henrich, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, this book is one these few that really change how I see the world. An example of the book that had similar impact for me would be "Who's in charge" by Gazzaniga, or General Semantics by Korzybski.
The premise of the book is simple, but profound. Humans are cultural animals, and culture helped us evolve into the dominant species that we are now. More importantly, culture created evolutionary pressures, enabling selection for traits best adjusted to not only environmental, but also cultural factors.
Henrich's book is extremely well researched, referencing hundreds of peer reviewed articles in the areas of anthropology, genetics, economy and evolution. Each of the claims the author is making is backed up by wealth of research, and synthesizes ideas from a variety of disciplines. For a skeptical reader, the range of original research sources referenced in the book should be a valuable resource in reviewing the claims made in the book.
And these claims are what really makes this book special. It explains how the culture affects the learning process, knowledge transfer, skill retention, prestige, but also biological adaptations, and gene expressions. Some of the implications of the claims made in the book, particularly about how prestige affects individuals, made me a little uneasy, but only considering what is seeing as prestigious right now.
If you are interested in evolution of human species, in what makes us, humans, special and in what is affecting our future right now, read this book. Its worth it.
The premise of the book is simple, but profound. Humans are cultural animals, and culture helped us evolve into the dominant species that we are now. More importantly, culture created evolutionary pressures, enabling selection for traits best adjusted to not only environmental, but also cultural factors.
Henrich's book is extremely well researched, referencing hundreds of peer reviewed articles in the areas of anthropology, genetics, economy and evolution. Each of the claims the author is making is backed up by wealth of research, and synthesizes ideas from a variety of disciplines. For a skeptical reader, the range of original research sources referenced in the book should be a valuable resource in reviewing the claims made in the book.
And these claims are what really makes this book special. It explains how the culture affects the learning process, knowledge transfer, skill retention, prestige, but also biological adaptations, and gene expressions. Some of the implications of the claims made in the book, particularly about how prestige affects individuals, made me a little uneasy, but only considering what is seeing as prestigious right now.
If you are interested in evolution of human species, in what makes us, humans, special and in what is affecting our future right now, read this book. Its worth it.
December 23, 2016
A well-articulated case for gene-culture coevolution, and as good of an argument for culture driving genetic evolution as you are going to get. For starters Henrich’s book effectively debunks the once-orthodox and badly mistaken view (espoused by the likes of Stephen Jay Gould) that human biological evolution basically stopped 50K years ago and we’ve since been adapting via cultural evolution. Henrich does stress that accumulated culture is the driving force of human evolution but he also demonstrates the resulting and quite strong effects on human genome thus setting stage for autocatalytic gene-culture co-evolutionary process.
In my view many genes vs culture debates can be resolved by simply looking at culture as part of the environment, and then we are back to classic dynamics of natural selection and adaptation. In this sense Henrich’s emphasis on culture at the expense genes can be misleading to a cursory reader. At a high level Henrich’s perspective is actually in line with Cochran and Harpending (“10000 year explosion”) – humans have always genetically adapted to various environments and if anything the rate in the last 10K years have only increased due to culture-driven selection.
Notes to self:
- A big theme that humans unlike other species adapt to various environments via cultural “downloads” and learning rather than raw biological adaptation. That resulted in genetic changes that biologically optimized humans for knowledge acquisition from the surrounding environment/culture (extended childhood, menopause, cortex-folding and density limited by head size, selection for sociability, mimicry etc)
- Fascinating chapter on biological changes due to selection for running and hunting (humans can vary speed smoothly while animals got “gears”, special muscle fibers, skeletal changes, neck rotation, sweat glands changes)
- Outsourcing body functions in general is another theme (e.g. “water source” for running, food digestion - shorter stomachs, colons, smaller teeth, jaw changes etc). Outsourcing frees up the energy for optimizing the brain...
- Other adaptions – skin color, lactose tolerance, efficient alcohol processing in Asia, blue eyes in Balkans, infection resistance (malaria-sickle cell story, virus resistance in Europe vs Americas or Europe vs Africa). Cochran/Harpending have a different spin on lactose tolerance arguing for pastoral cultures with dairy outcompeting pastorals without dairy and on the margin outcompeting early farmers as well. They link it to emergence of Indo-European language family.
- Very big theme - opaque cumulative knowledge. Henrich explanation is clearer and more developed than Taleb’s “grandmothers wisdom” or “religion/faith as a hedge”. Results in selection for and wiring up of mimicry, norm following (to copy opaque knowledge without understanding it) and reputation maintenance. Finally a sensible argument for human tendency to follow norms and punish violators. Also need to know whom to copy from – prestige plus automatic selection for group affiliation markers such as ethnicity in choosing the model.
o Lesson to be learned: experiment, don’t design (humans are bad at top-down design, institutions and otherwise)
o Lack of causal models may be a plus in early phases of practice adoption but you do need them eventually.
o Interesting comment is increased need to “mentalize” other person’s state of mind (improves knowledge acquisition/download?), which could plausibly lead to dualism and farther down the road to religion(?)
- Cooperation is a big theme of course:
o Nice somewhat-plausible argument for “outsourcing” child raising and optimizing knowledge intake. Extended childhood increases cost on mother giving rise to pair-ponding. Learning from multiple models helps (from adults and same age group), perhaps leading to increased intra-tribal cooperation. Pair-bonding/family clans can also lead to cooperation among groups once daughters from one tribe marry the other.
o Intergroup competition with or without warfare also fosters cooperation within group. For more modern version of it see Tilly's european state formation via war.
- On one hand it is nice that Henrich’s argument doesn’t hinge on group vs individual selection as a mechanism for culture-driven evolution. On the other avoiding group selection subject altogether sometimes leads him down incredibly speculative alleys. For example he tries to justify kin selection as a special case of group selection driven by cultural selection, highly implausible. You don’t need culture for kin-selection at all, but yes you would most likely would need culture to increase trust among unrelated groups.
- Excellent section on “startup” problem, i.e. under what conditions does a species switch to cultural evolution (crossing the “rubicon”). Need to have enough knowledge around you to accumulate in the first place, at least enough knowledge that one can’t learn it on his own in single lifetime, chicken-and-egg problem. Tries to link to it to terrestrially (freeing up the hands), predation pressures (eliciting cooperation), fluctuating environments (forcing adaptation). Reducing workload on mother, emergence of pair-bonding may modulate this threshold crossing via cooperation feedback loops. Group size matters increasing probability of encountering or generating a successful practice. We probably almost crossed it a few times unsuccessfully. Very speculative, I’m not fully sold, but quite interesting. Perhaps needs synthesis with Cochran/Harpending that on the margin gives more weight to biological factors (human expansions, viruses).
- Cute bit on differences in bias towards forefront vs background in europeans vs asians (determining absolute line lengths vs relative sizes experiments)
- Distinguishes between biology and genetics, correctly warns about confusing the two when discussing effects of culture. In case for biology brings up thickening of neural connections due to reading (ok) and famous Nisbett/Cohen study of honor cultures and violence in American South as an import from Scots-Irish immigration (eh... don't hold your breath on this one).
- Henrich’s constant theme is that over multiple generations in a given specific environment and in the process of optimizing knowledge/culture for that environment a human subpopulation would undergo genetic changes. But then he often treats culture as the primary differentiating aspect between different populations. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Just think European diseases having a massive impact on colonization of America or compare populations that spend 8K years doing agriculture vs a few of hundred.
- Cute bit on division of labor as division of information in the face of vast amounts of accumulated knowledge, once you can’t learn it all specialization is inevitable and is only bound to increase. Even in pre-history division of labor between men and women was driven by this information and skill asymmetry.
- Another big theme collective brain. Larger groups, more connections, more experimentation, better solutions found quicker. Smells like another flavor of Garett Jones’ “Hive Mind”. OK, perhaps all else being equal larger group and more connections probably do make you smarter. But “all else being equal” is a tall order and is rarely the case. By Henrich’s own logic wouldn’t yours and your group’s achievement potential relative to where it is now be influenced by the evolutionary path that culture/population took to get to this point?
For a given point in time it seems that Cochran/Harpending idea of step jumps driven by right tail of IQ distribution may matter more relative to sheer group size and number of connections (small differences in average gives rise to large differences in the tails, and it is the tails that matter for significant progress). Joel Mokyr in his "Culture of Growth" makes a somewhat similar argument for a post-renaissance Bacon-inspired 200 year run of a transnational community of highly intelligent, constantly-communicating, knowledge-sharing tinkerers eventually bringing about industrial revolution. So yes connections and group size matter but it matters the most in the right tail.
Anyway, terrific book, often speculative but highly recommended. Read it together with "10000 year explosion" and you'll have a blast.
In my view many genes vs culture debates can be resolved by simply looking at culture as part of the environment, and then we are back to classic dynamics of natural selection and adaptation. In this sense Henrich’s emphasis on culture at the expense genes can be misleading to a cursory reader. At a high level Henrich’s perspective is actually in line with Cochran and Harpending (“10000 year explosion”) – humans have always genetically adapted to various environments and if anything the rate in the last 10K years have only increased due to culture-driven selection.
Notes to self:
- A big theme that humans unlike other species adapt to various environments via cultural “downloads” and learning rather than raw biological adaptation. That resulted in genetic changes that biologically optimized humans for knowledge acquisition from the surrounding environment/culture (extended childhood, menopause, cortex-folding and density limited by head size, selection for sociability, mimicry etc)
- Fascinating chapter on biological changes due to selection for running and hunting (humans can vary speed smoothly while animals got “gears”, special muscle fibers, skeletal changes, neck rotation, sweat glands changes)
- Outsourcing body functions in general is another theme (e.g. “water source” for running, food digestion - shorter stomachs, colons, smaller teeth, jaw changes etc). Outsourcing frees up the energy for optimizing the brain...
- Other adaptions – skin color, lactose tolerance, efficient alcohol processing in Asia, blue eyes in Balkans, infection resistance (malaria-sickle cell story, virus resistance in Europe vs Americas or Europe vs Africa). Cochran/Harpending have a different spin on lactose tolerance arguing for pastoral cultures with dairy outcompeting pastorals without dairy and on the margin outcompeting early farmers as well. They link it to emergence of Indo-European language family.
- Very big theme - opaque cumulative knowledge. Henrich explanation is clearer and more developed than Taleb’s “grandmothers wisdom” or “religion/faith as a hedge”. Results in selection for and wiring up of mimicry, norm following (to copy opaque knowledge without understanding it) and reputation maintenance. Finally a sensible argument for human tendency to follow norms and punish violators. Also need to know whom to copy from – prestige plus automatic selection for group affiliation markers such as ethnicity in choosing the model.
o Lesson to be learned: experiment, don’t design (humans are bad at top-down design, institutions and otherwise)
o Lack of causal models may be a plus in early phases of practice adoption but you do need them eventually.
o Interesting comment is increased need to “mentalize” other person’s state of mind (improves knowledge acquisition/download?), which could plausibly lead to dualism and farther down the road to religion(?)
- Cooperation is a big theme of course:
o Nice somewhat-plausible argument for “outsourcing” child raising and optimizing knowledge intake. Extended childhood increases cost on mother giving rise to pair-ponding. Learning from multiple models helps (from adults and same age group), perhaps leading to increased intra-tribal cooperation. Pair-bonding/family clans can also lead to cooperation among groups once daughters from one tribe marry the other.
o Intergroup competition with or without warfare also fosters cooperation within group. For more modern version of it see Tilly's european state formation via war.
- On one hand it is nice that Henrich’s argument doesn’t hinge on group vs individual selection as a mechanism for culture-driven evolution. On the other avoiding group selection subject altogether sometimes leads him down incredibly speculative alleys. For example he tries to justify kin selection as a special case of group selection driven by cultural selection, highly implausible. You don’t need culture for kin-selection at all, but yes you would most likely would need culture to increase trust among unrelated groups.
- Excellent section on “startup” problem, i.e. under what conditions does a species switch to cultural evolution (crossing the “rubicon”). Need to have enough knowledge around you to accumulate in the first place, at least enough knowledge that one can’t learn it on his own in single lifetime, chicken-and-egg problem. Tries to link to it to terrestrially (freeing up the hands), predation pressures (eliciting cooperation), fluctuating environments (forcing adaptation). Reducing workload on mother, emergence of pair-bonding may modulate this threshold crossing via cooperation feedback loops. Group size matters increasing probability of encountering or generating a successful practice. We probably almost crossed it a few times unsuccessfully. Very speculative, I’m not fully sold, but quite interesting. Perhaps needs synthesis with Cochran/Harpending that on the margin gives more weight to biological factors (human expansions, viruses).
- Cute bit on differences in bias towards forefront vs background in europeans vs asians (determining absolute line lengths vs relative sizes experiments)
- Distinguishes between biology and genetics, correctly warns about confusing the two when discussing effects of culture. In case for biology brings up thickening of neural connections due to reading (ok) and famous Nisbett/Cohen study of honor cultures and violence in American South as an import from Scots-Irish immigration (eh... don't hold your breath on this one).
- Henrich’s constant theme is that over multiple generations in a given specific environment and in the process of optimizing knowledge/culture for that environment a human subpopulation would undergo genetic changes. But then he often treats culture as the primary differentiating aspect between different populations. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Just think European diseases having a massive impact on colonization of America or compare populations that spend 8K years doing agriculture vs a few of hundred.
- Cute bit on division of labor as division of information in the face of vast amounts of accumulated knowledge, once you can’t learn it all specialization is inevitable and is only bound to increase. Even in pre-history division of labor between men and women was driven by this information and skill asymmetry.
- Another big theme collective brain. Larger groups, more connections, more experimentation, better solutions found quicker. Smells like another flavor of Garett Jones’ “Hive Mind”. OK, perhaps all else being equal larger group and more connections probably do make you smarter. But “all else being equal” is a tall order and is rarely the case. By Henrich’s own logic wouldn’t yours and your group’s achievement potential relative to where it is now be influenced by the evolutionary path that culture/population took to get to this point?
For a given point in time it seems that Cochran/Harpending idea of step jumps driven by right tail of IQ distribution may matter more relative to sheer group size and number of connections (small differences in average gives rise to large differences in the tails, and it is the tails that matter for significant progress). Joel Mokyr in his "Culture of Growth" makes a somewhat similar argument for a post-renaissance Bacon-inspired 200 year run of a transnational community of highly intelligent, constantly-communicating, knowledge-sharing tinkerers eventually bringing about industrial revolution. So yes connections and group size matter but it matters the most in the right tail.
Anyway, terrific book, often speculative but highly recommended. Read it together with "10000 year explosion" and you'll have a blast.
August 12, 2021
This is Joseph R. Henrich’s energetic, through and ultimately quite persuasive argument for culture gene coevolution.
Henrich defines culture as 'socially transmitted (learned) behavior'. Understanding social learning as socially modeled memetic and behavioral replication, variation and adaptive conservation within a given population is the fundament of cultural evolution theory.
Culture gene coevolution postulates that human biology, psychology and sociability is emergent from iterative reciprocal interactions between (a) genetic evolution and (b) cultural evolution.
Wherein, changes in culture (controlled use of fire 🔥), elicit genetic adaptations (smaller jaws, teeth and stomachs, and bigger brains 🧠), which in tern elicit even more advances in culture (improved hunting, crop cultivation and animal husbandry 🐄), which in tern elicit even more genetic adaptations (settled, larger scale civilizations 🏡 ), and so on ad infinitum 🏭 ➡️ 👩🚀 ➡️📱).
In other words: as culture advances, energy and time are conserved, and our brains and bodies adapt to the new circumstances, enabling further advances in culture.
And at some point, a bunch more babies get born, populations explode, and we become hopelessly dependent on (and entangled within) culture and technology, to the extent that culture becomes the primary driver of evolution.
And just like that.
We have crossed a rubicon.
We’re too weak and deskilled to survive without it.
And there’s no turning back.
Well.
Actually.
According to Henrich, you can turn back, but it’s not at all cool.
Apparently cultures, particularly ones that become isolated, lose culture and technology all the time.
Henrich cites examples of formerly advanced cultures that become geographically isolated and eventually lose the ability even to make fire and clothing and stuff.
Again, when it comes to loss of cultural products, cultural isolation is the likely culprit.
Conversely, cultural exchange and cultural accumulation are the pistons in the engine of cultural advance.
Henrich strongly argues (or rather, belabors) the point that individual intelligence is not as important to our success as cumulative cultural production.
Less intelligent individuals collaborating in larger groups have an enormous advantage in evolution of technical and cultural products over more intelligent individuals working in isolation.
And systems of written language and mathematics enable vast amounts of individuals to collaborate, and additionally enable culture and technology to accumulate, evolve and advance over long timeframes.
Henrich asserts that traditionally, there has been far too much focus on genetic evolution, and not enough recognition of the impact of cultural evolution on our bodies, brains and behavior.
Henrich states:
“trying to understand the evolution of human anatomy, physiology and psychology without considering culture-gene coevolution is like studying fish and ignoring the fact that fish live in and evolve underwater.”
True that!
Anyway.
This is a great book.
For a variety of reasons.
Not the least of which.
Is that it discusses both culture and biology in a systematic and realistic way, that is refreshingly useful and generative.
It’s a wonderful contrast to the way these same topics are weaponized in contemporary political discourse.
NOTE: The following indicated sections of this review have been redacted due my poor judgment regarding their potential to elicit an extremely tiered, extremely un-fun and doubtlessly unproductive type of conversation in the comments section.
[REDACTED RANT critical of a dead end right wing hot button issue].
That.
Shit.
Is.
[REDACTED].
And it’s sloppy thinking too.
[REDACTED RANT critiquing problematic assumptions built into right wing hot button issue and religion - I really should have known better].
And all I got to say to ALL that is…naw son.
On the flip.
[REDACTED RANT critical of a dead end left wing hot button issue].
Don’t get me wrong.
[REDACTED RANT attempting to be reasonable about a dead end left wing hot button issue].
But misguided attempts at achieving [REDACTED] at the expense of intellectual freedoms and progress are ridiculous and cringe worthy at best, and degenerate and stultifying on average.
This is a GREAT book.
But…
Unfortunately, it suffers from an over reliance on detailed explanation of experiments and their findings, and under utilization of theoretical and narrative explanations.
In other words: the forest (the important point) gets lost in tree after tree of supportive experimental data.
I’m still giving it a 5/5⭐️‘s
But please bare this in mind and consider yourself informed prior to consent 🤩
Henrich defines culture as 'socially transmitted (learned) behavior'. Understanding social learning as socially modeled memetic and behavioral replication, variation and adaptive conservation within a given population is the fundament of cultural evolution theory.
Culture gene coevolution postulates that human biology, psychology and sociability is emergent from iterative reciprocal interactions between (a) genetic evolution and (b) cultural evolution.
Wherein, changes in culture (controlled use of fire 🔥), elicit genetic adaptations (smaller jaws, teeth and stomachs, and bigger brains 🧠), which in tern elicit even more advances in culture (improved hunting, crop cultivation and animal husbandry 🐄), which in tern elicit even more genetic adaptations (settled, larger scale civilizations 🏡 ), and so on ad infinitum 🏭 ➡️ 👩🚀 ➡️📱).
In other words: as culture advances, energy and time are conserved, and our brains and bodies adapt to the new circumstances, enabling further advances in culture.
And at some point, a bunch more babies get born, populations explode, and we become hopelessly dependent on (and entangled within) culture and technology, to the extent that culture becomes the primary driver of evolution.
And just like that.
We have crossed a rubicon.
We’re too weak and deskilled to survive without it.
And there’s no turning back.
Well.
Actually.
According to Henrich, you can turn back, but it’s not at all cool.
Apparently cultures, particularly ones that become isolated, lose culture and technology all the time.
Henrich cites examples of formerly advanced cultures that become geographically isolated and eventually lose the ability even to make fire and clothing and stuff.
Again, when it comes to loss of cultural products, cultural isolation is the likely culprit.
Conversely, cultural exchange and cultural accumulation are the pistons in the engine of cultural advance.
Henrich strongly argues (or rather, belabors) the point that individual intelligence is not as important to our success as cumulative cultural production.
Less intelligent individuals collaborating in larger groups have an enormous advantage in evolution of technical and cultural products over more intelligent individuals working in isolation.
And systems of written language and mathematics enable vast amounts of individuals to collaborate, and additionally enable culture and technology to accumulate, evolve and advance over long timeframes.
Henrich asserts that traditionally, there has been far too much focus on genetic evolution, and not enough recognition of the impact of cultural evolution on our bodies, brains and behavior.
Henrich states:
“trying to understand the evolution of human anatomy, physiology and psychology without considering culture-gene coevolution is like studying fish and ignoring the fact that fish live in and evolve underwater.”
True that!
Anyway.
This is a great book.
For a variety of reasons.
Not the least of which.
Is that it discusses both culture and biology in a systematic and realistic way, that is refreshingly useful and generative.
It’s a wonderful contrast to the way these same topics are weaponized in contemporary political discourse.
NOTE: The following indicated sections of this review have been redacted due my poor judgment regarding their potential to elicit an extremely tiered, extremely un-fun and doubtlessly unproductive type of conversation in the comments section.
[REDACTED RANT critical of a dead end right wing hot button issue].
That.
Shit.
Is.
[REDACTED].
And it’s sloppy thinking too.
[REDACTED RANT critiquing problematic assumptions built into right wing hot button issue and religion - I really should have known better].
And all I got to say to ALL that is…naw son.
On the flip.
[REDACTED RANT critical of a dead end left wing hot button issue].
Don’t get me wrong.
[REDACTED RANT attempting to be reasonable about a dead end left wing hot button issue].
But misguided attempts at achieving [REDACTED] at the expense of intellectual freedoms and progress are ridiculous and cringe worthy at best, and degenerate and stultifying on average.
This is a GREAT book.
But…
Unfortunately, it suffers from an over reliance on detailed explanation of experiments and their findings, and under utilization of theoretical and narrative explanations.
In other words: the forest (the important point) gets lost in tree after tree of supportive experimental data.
I’m still giving it a 5/5⭐️‘s
But please bare this in mind and consider yourself informed prior to consent 🤩
December 28, 2019
One of the most amazing books I've read in recent years, The Secret of Our Success has a single thesis that sounds obvious but then it shows you how different it is from what you might have thought before, how much it explains, and how we have learned all of this with a combination of genetics, social psychology, anthropological observation of different groups, studying primates, game theory, experimental economics, and many other disciplines all of which come together to form a richer, more complex understanding of what makes humans so unique.
Joseph Henrich's thesis is that humans are set apart because culture and genes have co-evolved. We’re not smarter, more social or more strategic than other animals but we’re much better at learning from each other. This cultural evolution is non-genetic and can make rapid progress, including adapting to different and changing environments. But it is not unrelated to genes, in fact genetic changes have made us better cultural learners--and made us worse at everything when we do not have that a cultural learning at our disposal. In a sense, humans domesticated themselves--just like they domesticated wolves into more docile and weaker dogs.
Henrich goes through reasons why some other explanations are wrong:
(1) Humans are not smarter than other animals. Infants score about the same as chimps on various cognitive tests, we're worse at getting to the Nash equilibrium of games like matching pennies than many chimps, we can be worse at numerical recall than chimps, etc. Where we excel is in our ability to learn from each other.
(2) Humans are not more successful because of our better evolved instincts. Take European explorers and drop them in the middle of an unfamiliar area like Australia, the Canadian north or even Florida and they will have no idea how to hunt for food, fashion weapons, make boats, make warm clothing, identify or prepare foods, etc. We don't have instincts, we have locally adapted cultural knowledge to survive in these contexts.
(3) Humans are not inherently more prosocial than other animals, it is learned not innate. For example, a variety of experimental games (like the "ultimatum" game) show more collaborative attitudes in larger scale societies than in smaller ones.
Instead his explanation is that culture is like a "collective brain" that enables ideas that are discovered by one person to be spread to others. He shows through a model that it less important to have geniuses than to have learners and collaborators. And that learning depends not just on population size but its interconnectedness. That is why larger populations come up with more complex inventions (e.g., the wheel was only invented in Eurasia) and more complex languages with more sounds and more words.
This ability to learn does depend on our brains but has also co-evolved with our brains. For example, we have smaller teeth and a weaker digestive system which forces us to pre-digest our food with tools, fire and many other treatments. We are capable long distance runners, which requires a system to sweat, which only works because we can carry water with us and rehydrate. Etc.
Cultural transmission has also made us respect and learn from people in our groups, those with greater age and more prestige.
Henrich has personally made important contributions to understanding in a number of these areas, but not everything in the book is completely original. And that is a strength of the book--it is conveying a cutting edge field but does not appear (to my admittedly layman views) to be idiosyncratic or pushing a thesis too far. Instead it is partly summarizing the state of the art.
In some cases the book is more speculative or has to extrapolate from lab experiments to complex dynamics that play out over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Henrich is generally honest about the limitations on our understanding and how they will be filled in over time. But does not let that detract from the bigger thesis.
Occasionally Henrich's arguments suffer a bit from the "just so" stories that rationalize any human behavior as an evolutionary adaptation. But his novel and creative use of just how hard it is to adapt to different environments (e.g., an extended discussion of what it takes to hunt/cook a seal in the arctic or prepare manioc in Africa without getting cyanide poisoning) make it clear that many of these adaptations really are that--adapative.
Henrich also takes a relatively conservative stance that places a lot of emphasis on hierarchy, prestige, age, and not thinking too much for oneself and instead accepting the culture we get because that culture is adaptive and adaptive in ways we don't fully comprehend so tampering with it can have serious downsides. In fact in the conclusion he is quite explicit about this: "Humans are bad at intentionally designing effective institutions and organizations, though I’m hoping that as we get deeper insights into human nature and cultural evolution this can improve. Until then, we should take a page from cultural evolution’s playbook and design 'variation and selection systems' that will allow alternative institutions or organizational forms to compete.”
There is nothing inherently wrong with being conservative in this sense, but it does have two risks: not explaining how we have innovated in part by challenging authority and asking questions (the enlightenment had that attitude and very rapid change) and a normative risk of lending too much credibility to existing institutions and practices.
These are small quibbles when set aside against contemplating one of the most impressive accomplishments of human cultural evolution, understanding ourselves would be high up on the list. And this book represents the accumulated ways we have better understood ourselves, many of which we have only learned in the last few decades. Imagine how much more we will learn in the coming years, decades, centuries and more.
Joseph Henrich's thesis is that humans are set apart because culture and genes have co-evolved. We’re not smarter, more social or more strategic than other animals but we’re much better at learning from each other. This cultural evolution is non-genetic and can make rapid progress, including adapting to different and changing environments. But it is not unrelated to genes, in fact genetic changes have made us better cultural learners--and made us worse at everything when we do not have that a cultural learning at our disposal. In a sense, humans domesticated themselves--just like they domesticated wolves into more docile and weaker dogs.
Henrich goes through reasons why some other explanations are wrong:
(1) Humans are not smarter than other animals. Infants score about the same as chimps on various cognitive tests, we're worse at getting to the Nash equilibrium of games like matching pennies than many chimps, we can be worse at numerical recall than chimps, etc. Where we excel is in our ability to learn from each other.
(2) Humans are not more successful because of our better evolved instincts. Take European explorers and drop them in the middle of an unfamiliar area like Australia, the Canadian north or even Florida and they will have no idea how to hunt for food, fashion weapons, make boats, make warm clothing, identify or prepare foods, etc. We don't have instincts, we have locally adapted cultural knowledge to survive in these contexts.
(3) Humans are not inherently more prosocial than other animals, it is learned not innate. For example, a variety of experimental games (like the "ultimatum" game) show more collaborative attitudes in larger scale societies than in smaller ones.
Instead his explanation is that culture is like a "collective brain" that enables ideas that are discovered by one person to be spread to others. He shows through a model that it less important to have geniuses than to have learners and collaborators. And that learning depends not just on population size but its interconnectedness. That is why larger populations come up with more complex inventions (e.g., the wheel was only invented in Eurasia) and more complex languages with more sounds and more words.
This ability to learn does depend on our brains but has also co-evolved with our brains. For example, we have smaller teeth and a weaker digestive system which forces us to pre-digest our food with tools, fire and many other treatments. We are capable long distance runners, which requires a system to sweat, which only works because we can carry water with us and rehydrate. Etc.
Cultural transmission has also made us respect and learn from people in our groups, those with greater age and more prestige.
Henrich has personally made important contributions to understanding in a number of these areas, but not everything in the book is completely original. And that is a strength of the book--it is conveying a cutting edge field but does not appear (to my admittedly layman views) to be idiosyncratic or pushing a thesis too far. Instead it is partly summarizing the state of the art.
In some cases the book is more speculative or has to extrapolate from lab experiments to complex dynamics that play out over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. Henrich is generally honest about the limitations on our understanding and how they will be filled in over time. But does not let that detract from the bigger thesis.
Occasionally Henrich's arguments suffer a bit from the "just so" stories that rationalize any human behavior as an evolutionary adaptation. But his novel and creative use of just how hard it is to adapt to different environments (e.g., an extended discussion of what it takes to hunt/cook a seal in the arctic or prepare manioc in Africa without getting cyanide poisoning) make it clear that many of these adaptations really are that--adapative.
Henrich also takes a relatively conservative stance that places a lot of emphasis on hierarchy, prestige, age, and not thinking too much for oneself and instead accepting the culture we get because that culture is adaptive and adaptive in ways we don't fully comprehend so tampering with it can have serious downsides. In fact in the conclusion he is quite explicit about this: "Humans are bad at intentionally designing effective institutions and organizations, though I’m hoping that as we get deeper insights into human nature and cultural evolution this can improve. Until then, we should take a page from cultural evolution’s playbook and design 'variation and selection systems' that will allow alternative institutions or organizational forms to compete.”
There is nothing inherently wrong with being conservative in this sense, but it does have two risks: not explaining how we have innovated in part by challenging authority and asking questions (the enlightenment had that attitude and very rapid change) and a normative risk of lending too much credibility to existing institutions and practices.
These are small quibbles when set aside against contemplating one of the most impressive accomplishments of human cultural evolution, understanding ourselves would be high up on the list. And this book represents the accumulated ways we have better understood ourselves, many of which we have only learned in the last few decades. Imagine how much more we will learn in the coming years, decades, centuries and more.
July 28, 2018
Excellent, comprehensive and well-written overview of how culture shaped us as a species. Henrich writes a very convincing and well-sourced history of humanity. A few really random and interesting tidbits:
* Kids will pick up and play with all sorts of things, but before putting plant-like things in their mouths, they will look to an adult for cues.
* Our bodies are built to run (read born to run for more), but not for storing water. So our evolution was premised on us being able to communicate to eachother where to find water and how to hunt prey
*We crossed the rubicon as a species when people started helping women out with their babies. Amen!
Lots of really cool insights in here.
* Kids will pick up and play with all sorts of things, but before putting plant-like things in their mouths, they will look to an adult for cues.
* Our bodies are built to run (read born to run for more), but not for storing water. So our evolution was premised on us being able to communicate to eachother where to find water and how to hunt prey
*We crossed the rubicon as a species when people started helping women out with their babies. Amen!
Lots of really cool insights in here.
November 24, 2018
This is a good collection of factoids and anecdotes illustrating the point that human intelligence/behavior can be biological without being genetic. And that is important because it emphasizes the roles of the physical and social environments. Unfortunately, the book is put together like a course syllabus more than like something for the general reader (with frequent parentheses referring to other chapters, etc.)
December 17, 2018
Trying to queer the nature-nurture binary :D (rather the genetics-environment binary). I think it overreaches in the middle with some of the Evo-Psych explanations lacking specificity in how exactly culture has such a strong effect on selection itself. Otherwise goes well with Reich's Who we are and how we got here, Cochran's 10000 year explosion and Pinker's Blank State.
Main theme of the book is what it says in the subtitle - it's hard to distinguish effects of culture evolution and human evolution since they go hand in hand.
I like the analogy:
Main theme of the book is what it says in the subtitle - it's hard to distinguish effects of culture evolution and human evolution since they go hand in hand.
I like the analogy:
We stand on the shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits.
December 20, 2020
This is a very good book. It has a good overall theory, supported by some very dubious neuroscience. These parts are best just ignored. There's a fair bit of "but these differences are totally not caused by genetics" stuff without serious attempt to grapple with the evidence. It's worth it though.
Scott Alexander has a very good review of the book. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04...
Scott Alexander has a very good review of the book. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04...
March 11, 2018
This book is an extensive account of gene-culture coevolution. Bringing together many lines of evidence (archeological, linguistic, genetic, first hand-ethnographic datas, behavioral economics, comparative psychology) author addresses those central themes :
• our (over) imitative tendency, leading to (1) underperforming at self-interest oriented games when compared with chimpanzees, and to (2) replicating behaviors that are superfluous and devoid of instrumental efficiency;
• the rational outcomes of cultural opacity;
• prestige-, ethnic- and self-similarity-biased learning capacity ;
• anatomical and physiological novelties (small stomach and canine, fine motor dexterity, white sclera, numerous sweats glands, skins and eyes color);
• ability to override and re-frame instinctive emotional responses (be it through cooking, through descent, wedding or kinship rules);
• self-domesticating norm psychology;
• intergroup competitions schemes (war and territorial expansion, differences in migration, in survival, in reproduction, and in prestige-biased transmission)
• dependence on observed or even inferred social norms in calibrating how cooperative, altruist or selfish we are;
• ethnic-stereotyping urges;
• cumulative cultural evolution (autocatalytic process termed the rubicon, following Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion).
Some high lights include :
• the claim we are neither selfish nor cooperative - altruist but spontaneously following observed or inferred rules, which we depend upon to become one or the other (spontaneous rule following better explains social equilibrium than the invisible hand of interest) - (p.154)
• the start-up enigma (which state of affair was rich enough in information and know-how without a prior brain increase to exert a selective pressure favoring such an increase in working memory, information processing and imitative skills - including mimicry), enigma presumably resolved by terrestriality, group enlargement, pair-bonding and cooperative childrearing.
Joseph Henrich strongly endorses and strengthen his thesis director's (Robert Boyd) contribution (Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution), and that of other key thinkers like Michael Tomasello (Origins of Human Communication), Bernard Chapais (Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human Society) and Sarah Hrdy (Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. One of his ambition is to draw a line on evolutionary psychologists' (David Buss and Steven Pinker notably) account of our species making, for its dismissal of culture is outdated and no longer tenable. This goal is welcom and well served.
One bad side of the book is that Henrich seems to embrace a little too much, in a way that overflows the reader with many big claims and hypothesis, some of which are poorly supported. Among those the claim that dominance (physical threat and bullying) is still in effect in the building of human hierarchy and group leadership. Very few, if any, experimental ground is given in support.
Overall, there is quite much to discuss and think about therein, and I am personally rejoiced at seeing an anthropologist going at the big gene-culture evolution picture with such cleverness and scholarship.
• our (over) imitative tendency, leading to (1) underperforming at self-interest oriented games when compared with chimpanzees, and to (2) replicating behaviors that are superfluous and devoid of instrumental efficiency;
• the rational outcomes of cultural opacity;
• prestige-, ethnic- and self-similarity-biased learning capacity ;
• anatomical and physiological novelties (small stomach and canine, fine motor dexterity, white sclera, numerous sweats glands, skins and eyes color);
• ability to override and re-frame instinctive emotional responses (be it through cooking, through descent, wedding or kinship rules);
• self-domesticating norm psychology;
• intergroup competitions schemes (war and territorial expansion, differences in migration, in survival, in reproduction, and in prestige-biased transmission)
• dependence on observed or even inferred social norms in calibrating how cooperative, altruist or selfish we are;
• ethnic-stereotyping urges;
• cumulative cultural evolution (autocatalytic process termed the rubicon, following Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion).
Some high lights include :
• the claim we are neither selfish nor cooperative - altruist but spontaneously following observed or inferred rules, which we depend upon to become one or the other (spontaneous rule following better explains social equilibrium than the invisible hand of interest) - (p.154)
• the start-up enigma (which state of affair was rich enough in information and know-how without a prior brain increase to exert a selective pressure favoring such an increase in working memory, information processing and imitative skills - including mimicry), enigma presumably resolved by terrestriality, group enlargement, pair-bonding and cooperative childrearing.
Joseph Henrich strongly endorses and strengthen his thesis director's (Robert Boyd) contribution (Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution), and that of other key thinkers like Michael Tomasello (Origins of Human Communication), Bernard Chapais (Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human Society) and Sarah Hrdy (Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. One of his ambition is to draw a line on evolutionary psychologists' (David Buss and Steven Pinker notably) account of our species making, for its dismissal of culture is outdated and no longer tenable. This goal is welcom and well served.
One bad side of the book is that Henrich seems to embrace a little too much, in a way that overflows the reader with many big claims and hypothesis, some of which are poorly supported. Among those the claim that dominance (physical threat and bullying) is still in effect in the building of human hierarchy and group leadership. Very few, if any, experimental ground is given in support.
Overall, there is quite much to discuss and think about therein, and I am personally rejoiced at seeing an anthropologist going at the big gene-culture evolution picture with such cleverness and scholarship.
November 2, 2022
This book is principally about gene/culture co-evolution, a topic that has long interested me, but it also touches on a number of related areas where I have often found standard explanations to be incomplete -- how and when humans became qualitatively different from other primates, the connection between intelligence and cultural learning, the social basis for morality, how cultural knowledge is gained and lost, and the continuation of human evolution long past the point where conventional explanations say it stopped. A lot of this is just reinforcement of ideas that I had gotten from other books and partly developed on my own, but there is much here that is new, and Henrich does an impressive job of backing up his claims with examples, explanations and citations to peer reviewed studies. The arguments are presented in a straightforward style, never talking down to the reader, but managing to avoid clarity-obscuring academic jargon.
One of the most interesting points that seems obvious once presented is the huge superiority of social learning over individual brilliance. Not very bright people who stumble along in group settings making small improvements over prior art and then teaching the next generation help to advance the level of learning and increase the prospects for cross generational retention of knowledge in a way that individual genius is incapable of doing. I had elements of these ideas in my head, but Henrich puts them all together in a way that I never did that gave me a real aha moment.
Another great thing about this book is how it lays the groundwork for further study. There is so much more to think about beyond what is presented here --How did early cultural learning and gene/culture co-evolution play into the development of agriculture and early states? How does it play into modern history particularly the massive changes in the human condition wrought by the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Information Revolution? How can this thinking be applied to modern theories of government and policy decisions? What does it mean for the future of war? How do epigenetic effects mediate between genes and culture? How do the ideas about social learning driving the development of social norms mesh with the thinking of great moral philosophers from Plato to Kant to Rawls? How does this stuff mesh with economics? There are so many implications of these ideas. I can't wait to see them developed further.
One of the most interesting points that seems obvious once presented is the huge superiority of social learning over individual brilliance. Not very bright people who stumble along in group settings making small improvements over prior art and then teaching the next generation help to advance the level of learning and increase the prospects for cross generational retention of knowledge in a way that individual genius is incapable of doing. I had elements of these ideas in my head, but Henrich puts them all together in a way that I never did that gave me a real aha moment.
Another great thing about this book is how it lays the groundwork for further study. There is so much more to think about beyond what is presented here --How did early cultural learning and gene/culture co-evolution play into the development of agriculture and early states? How does it play into modern history particularly the massive changes in the human condition wrought by the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Information Revolution? How can this thinking be applied to modern theories of government and policy decisions? What does it mean for the future of war? How do epigenetic effects mediate between genes and culture? How do the ideas about social learning driving the development of social norms mesh with the thinking of great moral philosophers from Plato to Kant to Rawls? How does this stuff mesh with economics? There are so many implications of these ideas. I can't wait to see them developed further.
April 13, 2019
Culture has long been neglected while explaining biological evolution, and I personally have never thought of the many links between the evolution of our society and of our genes. This well-researched book by Harvard professor Joseph Henrich presents an account of human evolution while clearly underlining profound ways in which culture has shaped our genes.
According to the author, the Rubicon which tipped our species from ape-hood to something more, was the beginning of a runaway process of cultural learning, when the combined group knowledge of society started exceeding what an individual could hope to invent by its own in a lifetime. This in turn caused increased inter-dependence among humans as it was more profitable to develop social learning skills over individual prowess. Dr Henrich presents compelling experiments from psychology and sociology, which point towards our extremely tuned social learning skills as the biggest differentiating factor from apes - in fact we 'ape' each other much more than apes do. What also interested me a lot was the processes we use to select whom to learn what from, right from our childhood.
I would rate this book alongside Sapiens, in the scope and depth of the topics it covers.
Selected excerpts (I finally figured out how to export kindle highlights!):
It’s now clear that infants and young children use cues of competence and reliability, along with familiarity, to figure out from whom to learn. In fact, by age one, infants use their own early cultural knowledge to figure out who tends to know things, and then use this performance information to focus their learning, attention, and memory. Infants are well known to engage in what developmental psychologists call “social referencing.”
Interestingly, while hunters reach their peak strength and speed in their twenties, individual hunting success does not peak until around age 40, because success depends more on know-how and refined skills than on physical prowess. By contrast, chimpanzees—who also hunt and gather—can obtain enough calories to sustain themselves immediately after infancy ends, around age 5.
The long and short of all this is that it’s very difficult to survive for months without cooking. Raw-foodists are thin and often feel hungry. Their body fat drops so low that women often stop menstruating or menstruate only irregularly. This occurs despite the supermarket availability of a vast range of raw foods, the use of powerful processing technologies like blenders, and the consumption of some preprocessed foods. The upshot is that human foraging populations could never survive without cooking; meanwhile, apes do just fine without cooking, though they do love cooked foods.
Often, most or all of the people skilled in deploying such adaptive practices do not understand how or why they work, or even that they “do” anything at all. Such complex adaptations can emerge precisely because natural selection has favored individuals who often place their faith in cultural inheritance—in the accumulated wisdom implicit in the practices and beliefs derived from their forbearers—over their own intuitions and personal experiences. In many crucial situations, intuitions and personal experiences can lead one astray, as we saw with our lost explorers (the nardoo was satisfying).
This causes social norms, including ideas, beliefs, practices (e.g., rituals), and motivations, to flow via cultural transmission from more successful groups to less successful groups. Since individuals cannot easily distinguish what makes a group more successful, there is a substantial amount of cultural flow that has nothing to do with success (e.g., hairstyles and music preferences).
According to the author, the Rubicon which tipped our species from ape-hood to something more, was the beginning of a runaway process of cultural learning, when the combined group knowledge of society started exceeding what an individual could hope to invent by its own in a lifetime. This in turn caused increased inter-dependence among humans as it was more profitable to develop social learning skills over individual prowess. Dr Henrich presents compelling experiments from psychology and sociology, which point towards our extremely tuned social learning skills as the biggest differentiating factor from apes - in fact we 'ape' each other much more than apes do. What also interested me a lot was the processes we use to select whom to learn what from, right from our childhood.
I would rate this book alongside Sapiens, in the scope and depth of the topics it covers.
Selected excerpts (I finally figured out how to export kindle highlights!):
It’s now clear that infants and young children use cues of competence and reliability, along with familiarity, to figure out from whom to learn. In fact, by age one, infants use their own early cultural knowledge to figure out who tends to know things, and then use this performance information to focus their learning, attention, and memory. Infants are well known to engage in what developmental psychologists call “social referencing.”
Interestingly, while hunters reach their peak strength and speed in their twenties, individual hunting success does not peak until around age 40, because success depends more on know-how and refined skills than on physical prowess. By contrast, chimpanzees—who also hunt and gather—can obtain enough calories to sustain themselves immediately after infancy ends, around age 5.
The long and short of all this is that it’s very difficult to survive for months without cooking. Raw-foodists are thin and often feel hungry. Their body fat drops so low that women often stop menstruating or menstruate only irregularly. This occurs despite the supermarket availability of a vast range of raw foods, the use of powerful processing technologies like blenders, and the consumption of some preprocessed foods. The upshot is that human foraging populations could never survive without cooking; meanwhile, apes do just fine without cooking, though they do love cooked foods.
Often, most or all of the people skilled in deploying such adaptive practices do not understand how or why they work, or even that they “do” anything at all. Such complex adaptations can emerge precisely because natural selection has favored individuals who often place their faith in cultural inheritance—in the accumulated wisdom implicit in the practices and beliefs derived from their forbearers—over their own intuitions and personal experiences. In many crucial situations, intuitions and personal experiences can lead one astray, as we saw with our lost explorers (the nardoo was satisfying).
This causes social norms, including ideas, beliefs, practices (e.g., rituals), and motivations, to flow via cultural transmission from more successful groups to less successful groups. Since individuals cannot easily distinguish what makes a group more successful, there is a substantial amount of cultural flow that has nothing to do with success (e.g., hairstyles and music preferences).
April 24, 2023
This book is a highly accessible and comprehensive introduction to culture-gene co-evolution theory. The author is the famous researcher who first-authored the seminal paper that pointed out a major problem in many fields of social sciences: the study samples are almost always drawn from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, neglecting huge variations across human populations.
But it is 4 instead of 5 stars because 1/ it reads like a text book and 2/ I am sure the author is aware of the alternative explanations and inconsistent results in many of the studies that he cited but somehow did not discuss them. The latter is most salient, to me, in the language part. For example, the laryngeal descent theory - even at the time of writing of the book - did not receive strong support and recently has completely been refuted, in light of new evidence.
But it is 4 instead of 5 stars because 1/ it reads like a text book and 2/ I am sure the author is aware of the alternative explanations and inconsistent results in many of the studies that he cited but somehow did not discuss them. The latter is most salient, to me, in the language part. For example, the laryngeal descent theory - even at the time of writing of the book - did not receive strong support and recently has completely been refuted, in light of new evidence.
January 11, 2023
“It’s better to be social than smart.”
Joseph Henrich argues that humans are not much smarter than apes, with one very important exception: social learning. Through social heuristics (e.g., prestige bias) and interactive knowledge-acquisition processes (imitation, and even over-imitation), we are distinguished by our ability to pass on acquired, cumulative knowledge. By extension, cultural evolution—or culture-gene coevolution—accounts for most of humans’ success (for norms, for civilization, for technology, etc.). The importance of social learning and culture mean that human development responds to both cultural and environmental selection pressures. The reason that humans stand alone in their social learning abilities traces to the intersection of brain size and pair-bonding in large groups.
The evidence Henrich presents ranges from our ability to run long distances for pursuit-hunting, which requires group coordination of water carrying in containers, to our use of peppers in food to prevent bacterial infection, to food processing techniques that prevent cyanide poisoning—techniques that humans, even in advanced societies, are not smart enough to figure out on their own. He also reviews practices, like cranial reformation, that serve cultural purposes (i.e., infallible indicator of group membership).
Why only three stars? In long, nonfiction books of this type, I hope (expect) to be wowed frequently with concrete theoretical or empirical insights. I wasn’t in this book, where instead I was often bored, encountering extended stretches of text that was either repetitive or too abstract to be informative/convincing.
That said, there were some interesting empirical findings discussed, including an experiment showing that how long people wait at traffic-crossing lights predicts their behavior in other behavioral games (e.g., the ultimatum game). One of the most interesting things discussed in the book was the Gesher Benot Ya’agov site, where a culturally advanced society lived 750,000 years ago. They used hand axes, made fires, and ate something like popcorn (gorgon nuts)!
Joseph Henrich argues that humans are not much smarter than apes, with one very important exception: social learning. Through social heuristics (e.g., prestige bias) and interactive knowledge-acquisition processes (imitation, and even over-imitation), we are distinguished by our ability to pass on acquired, cumulative knowledge. By extension, cultural evolution—or culture-gene coevolution—accounts for most of humans’ success (for norms, for civilization, for technology, etc.). The importance of social learning and culture mean that human development responds to both cultural and environmental selection pressures. The reason that humans stand alone in their social learning abilities traces to the intersection of brain size and pair-bonding in large groups.
The evidence Henrich presents ranges from our ability to run long distances for pursuit-hunting, which requires group coordination of water carrying in containers, to our use of peppers in food to prevent bacterial infection, to food processing techniques that prevent cyanide poisoning—techniques that humans, even in advanced societies, are not smart enough to figure out on their own. He also reviews practices, like cranial reformation, that serve cultural purposes (i.e., infallible indicator of group membership).
Why only three stars? In long, nonfiction books of this type, I hope (expect) to be wowed frequently with concrete theoretical or empirical insights. I wasn’t in this book, where instead I was often bored, encountering extended stretches of text that was either repetitive or too abstract to be informative/convincing.
That said, there were some interesting empirical findings discussed, including an experiment showing that how long people wait at traffic-crossing lights predicts their behavior in other behavioral games (e.g., the ultimatum game). One of the most interesting things discussed in the book was the Gesher Benot Ya’agov site, where a culturally advanced society lived 750,000 years ago. They used hand axes, made fires, and ate something like popcorn (gorgon nuts)!
September 17, 2022
De los mejores libros que he leído. Me demoré harto en terminarlo porque es medio denso y solo está en inglés, pero de todos modos valió la pena.
Si bien se posiciona en una corriente de pensamiento antropológico particular (que no la explicita mucho), me parece un marco bastante interesante -interdisciplinario y también bastante científico- para estudiar al ser humano y la cultura humana. El libro es muy rico en referencias, a veces casi parece una revisión de literatura; pero también abundante en ejemplos concretos e historias. A la vez, está redactado de una forma que facilita mucho el seguir el hilo de las ideas e irlas repasando a medida que se avanza en la lectura. Es un tremendo trabajo.
Aparte de todo eso, pienso otro de sus principales méritos es derribar algunos presupuestos con los que las personas menos instruidas en el área solemos interpretar la sociedad, la biología y la cultura. Es cierto: está lleno de libros que hacen lo mismo en filosofía y ciencias sociales. La gracia es que este lo hace de una manera muy científica y concreta, en vez de de hacerlo de una manera más filosófica-posmoderna. Por eso, creo que es raro encontrar algo como este libro.
Lo recomiendo 100%
Si bien se posiciona en una corriente de pensamiento antropológico particular (que no la explicita mucho), me parece un marco bastante interesante -interdisciplinario y también bastante científico- para estudiar al ser humano y la cultura humana. El libro es muy rico en referencias, a veces casi parece una revisión de literatura; pero también abundante en ejemplos concretos e historias. A la vez, está redactado de una forma que facilita mucho el seguir el hilo de las ideas e irlas repasando a medida que se avanza en la lectura. Es un tremendo trabajo.
Aparte de todo eso, pienso otro de sus principales méritos es derribar algunos presupuestos con los que las personas menos instruidas en el área solemos interpretar la sociedad, la biología y la cultura. Es cierto: está lleno de libros que hacen lo mismo en filosofía y ciencias sociales. La gracia es que este lo hace de una manera muy científica y concreta, en vez de de hacerlo de una manera más filosófica-posmoderna. Por eso, creo que es raro encontrar algo como este libro.
Lo recomiendo 100%
August 28, 2020
Hatchet was a lie!
In The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Joseph Henrich demonstrates that people are mostly not very bright and that our culture's collective knowledge—rather than intelligence, grit, or pluck—allows us to thrive.
In "Lost European Explorers," Henrich points out at length that European explorers consistently die in novel wildernesses unless they, like Roald Amundsen, work to learn from the people who live there. I wondered when reading these passages if the English explorers' deaths might also be attributable to cultural arrogance. There is one scene in which the Inuit find the Franklin expedition, who would view the Inuit as savages in need of cultural elevation, eating their shipmates. One imagines the Inuit slowly backing away.
The work made me think a lot about how we should approach education. One takeaway is that individuals are actually not very smart (even relative to chimps in some measures) and we should be careful about what we discard when interacting when picking up cultural know-how. We should maybe also strive to do more exploring of cultural understandings and of disciplinary knowledge. Henrich's success seems to come from his backgrounds in engineering, anthropology, economics, and evolutionary biology. The depth of his ideas comes in part from the breadth of his study.
I found The Secret of Our Success often fascinating, and I also appreciate reading about nongenetic evolution. And yet, I often found this a take it or leave it work, chapter by chapter. The failing may be mine, however, as evolution is not my first subject.
Notes.
In The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter, Joseph Henrich demonstrates that people are mostly not very bright and that our culture's collective knowledge—rather than intelligence, grit, or pluck—allows us to thrive.
In "Lost European Explorers," Henrich points out at length that European explorers consistently die in novel wildernesses unless they, like Roald Amundsen, work to learn from the people who live there. I wondered when reading these passages if the English explorers' deaths might also be attributable to cultural arrogance. There is one scene in which the Inuit find the Franklin expedition, who would view the Inuit as savages in need of cultural elevation, eating their shipmates. One imagines the Inuit slowly backing away.
The work made me think a lot about how we should approach education. One takeaway is that individuals are actually not very smart (even relative to chimps in some measures) and we should be careful about what we discard when interacting when picking up cultural know-how. We should maybe also strive to do more exploring of cultural understandings and of disciplinary knowledge. Henrich's success seems to come from his backgrounds in engineering, anthropology, economics, and evolutionary biology. The depth of his ideas comes in part from the breadth of his study.
I found The Secret of Our Success often fascinating, and I also appreciate reading about nongenetic evolution. And yet, I often found this a take it or leave it work, chapter by chapter. The failing may be mine, however, as evolution is not my first subject.
Notes.
May 21, 2018
What, if any, is the fundamental difference between humans and other animals? We have in-laws.
At least, so argues Joseph Henrich. He really does - but, of course, this bold statement is just part of a broader argument. According to Henrich, it is a fundamental mistake to think that the success of the human species can be explained by our cognitive capacities. The real advantage of humans, he argues, is that we are capable of learning from others, not just from personal experience. The evidence he offers comes from different angles.
Laboratory experiments, for instance, show that human toddlers are not better than young apes in problem-solving when they have to solve a problem on their own. However, they clearly outperform their distant cousins when there is scope for learning from others.
In real life, a spectacular illustration is provided by the fate of our explorers who, even when well prepared and well equipped, end up starving in environments where native people thrive. (Interestingly, successful explorers typically learn from native peoples before venturing into unknown territory). The success of these native people can be understood by looking at their often highly idiosyncratic knowledge of the local fauna and flora, and of the techniques that are needed for hunting and building in this specific environment.
This brings us to the core of the argument: this knowledge has seldom or never been acquired by the work of individuals, but through accumulated small improvements of knowledge through the generations. We don't know a lot because we stand on the shoulders of giants, but because we stand on a pyramid of pygmies.
Which bring us to the next point: if knowledge is only useful if it is adapted to local circumstances, and if "useful" knowledge is only accumulated slowly with a lot of trial-and-error, then, Henrich argues, the evolutionary forces that apply to biology, also apply to culture. This book is thus essentially a treatise on group selection and cultural evolution. It covers a broad and fascinating range of topics from this perspective:
For instance, to get back to the issue of the "in-laws": humans are fairly unique in having large extended families and in living beyond their procreative period in life. This makes sense once you understand that these extended families play a crucial role in cultural transmission. Another surprising insight is that blue eyes and pale skins have evolved to compensate for vitamin-D-poor diets at high latitudes (Inuit have not evolved these, because their diets are different from Europeans).
"The secret of our success" is not the first book to discuss these topics. Paul Seabright's " The Company of Strangers" has already discussed evolutionary approaches to economics and human institutions, Jared Diamond has developed a sweeping theory of the interaction between physical history and society in "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Peter Turchin has discussed group selection and culture in " Ultrasociety" (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach have argued that individual intelligence is powerless of not embedded within society in " The Knowledge Illusion" (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) ... But, as the focus of each book is different, I am convinced that you can still learn a lot (I certainly have) by adding this fascinating book to your reading list.
The reader should just be aware that this book has been published by Princeton University Press. While it is not overly technical, Henrich does strive for intellectual rigor, at times at the expense of readability.
One shortcoming in this book is that, just as Turchin, Henrich relies on the theory of group selection without addressing the controversies surrounding it. It would have been interesting to explain the criticisms that its opponents have addressed against this approach.
At least, so argues Joseph Henrich. He really does - but, of course, this bold statement is just part of a broader argument. According to Henrich, it is a fundamental mistake to think that the success of the human species can be explained by our cognitive capacities. The real advantage of humans, he argues, is that we are capable of learning from others, not just from personal experience. The evidence he offers comes from different angles.
Laboratory experiments, for instance, show that human toddlers are not better than young apes in problem-solving when they have to solve a problem on their own. However, they clearly outperform their distant cousins when there is scope for learning from others.
In real life, a spectacular illustration is provided by the fate of our explorers who, even when well prepared and well equipped, end up starving in environments where native people thrive. (Interestingly, successful explorers typically learn from native peoples before venturing into unknown territory). The success of these native people can be understood by looking at their often highly idiosyncratic knowledge of the local fauna and flora, and of the techniques that are needed for hunting and building in this specific environment.
This brings us to the core of the argument: this knowledge has seldom or never been acquired by the work of individuals, but through accumulated small improvements of knowledge through the generations. We don't know a lot because we stand on the shoulders of giants, but because we stand on a pyramid of pygmies.
Which bring us to the next point: if knowledge is only useful if it is adapted to local circumstances, and if "useful" knowledge is only accumulated slowly with a lot of trial-and-error, then, Henrich argues, the evolutionary forces that apply to biology, also apply to culture. This book is thus essentially a treatise on group selection and cultural evolution. It covers a broad and fascinating range of topics from this perspective:
For instance, to get back to the issue of the "in-laws": humans are fairly unique in having large extended families and in living beyond their procreative period in life. This makes sense once you understand that these extended families play a crucial role in cultural transmission. Another surprising insight is that blue eyes and pale skins have evolved to compensate for vitamin-D-poor diets at high latitudes (Inuit have not evolved these, because their diets are different from Europeans).
"The secret of our success" is not the first book to discuss these topics. Paul Seabright's " The Company of Strangers" has already discussed evolutionary approaches to economics and human institutions, Jared Diamond has developed a sweeping theory of the interaction between physical history and society in "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Peter Turchin has discussed group selection and culture in " Ultrasociety" (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach have argued that individual intelligence is powerless of not embedded within society in " The Knowledge Illusion" (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) ... But, as the focus of each book is different, I am convinced that you can still learn a lot (I certainly have) by adding this fascinating book to your reading list.
The reader should just be aware that this book has been published by Princeton University Press. While it is not overly technical, Henrich does strive for intellectual rigor, at times at the expense of readability.
One shortcoming in this book is that, just as Turchin, Henrich relies on the theory of group selection without addressing the controversies surrounding it. It would have been interesting to explain the criticisms that its opponents have addressed against this approach.
September 27, 2019
This is an interesting book on cultural anthropology and how our very social brains influenced human evolution. We tend to think of evolution as a primarily biological process, but the authors do a good job of showing how social interaction had a profound impact on the transformation of our bodies and brains.
The authors are two very smart people and the book explains some of the most interesting research being done in evolutionary science.
Humanity’s killer app was not so much our big brains, it was the development of social systems that allowed important knowledge to be stored and shared within a tribe and over time. One person could come up with a game changing survival tactic. Sociality allowed that innovation to promulgate. Thus the tactic didn’t disappear when that person died. Physical evolution takes a very long time. Human cultural evolution can happen in a single generation.
When you think about it, in essence, humans are no longer just individuals. Humanity is so intertwined and socially connected that we've become a sort of "super organism." Humans now need social systems just for basic survival. Put me in the woods without other people and I will quickly starve and die. Much like an organism has specialized cells, we now have specialized people, each of whom perform specific jobs that allow the whole to prosper. Other people with specialize skills make sure I am clothed, fed, sheltered and healthy. I've lost the ability to do this on my own.
Social and cultural evolution lead the way to important physical changes. Domestication of animals literally changed our human bodies. Adults quickly developed the ability to digest dairy. Social hunting techniques drove changes in our bodies that facilitated the ability to throw projectiles, run faster, and sweat.
The authors show how adherence to social norms was (and continues to be) a powerful driver that’s now hardwired into our brains. New research shows that infants will punish a wrongdoer and reward those who follow the rules.
This book needed to be edited a bit more astutely. Quite a few times it wandered off into the weeds. The authors have so much knowledge that it’s just hard for them not to reveal everything they know. It was a bit of a bipolar read - either delightfully engrossing or annoyingly tangential. Had the book been 25% shorter, it would have been stronger.
Still, I learned a lot. It revolutionized my opinion on the power of sociality to accelerate human evolution. Humanity’s ability to work as a team is our greatest superpower. We bicker, fight and kill each other, but underneath all that bluster are powerfully effective social systems that continue to allow homos sapiens to learn, survive catastrophes, and care for each other.
The authors are two very smart people and the book explains some of the most interesting research being done in evolutionary science.
Humanity’s killer app was not so much our big brains, it was the development of social systems that allowed important knowledge to be stored and shared within a tribe and over time. One person could come up with a game changing survival tactic. Sociality allowed that innovation to promulgate. Thus the tactic didn’t disappear when that person died. Physical evolution takes a very long time. Human cultural evolution can happen in a single generation.
When you think about it, in essence, humans are no longer just individuals. Humanity is so intertwined and socially connected that we've become a sort of "super organism." Humans now need social systems just for basic survival. Put me in the woods without other people and I will quickly starve and die. Much like an organism has specialized cells, we now have specialized people, each of whom perform specific jobs that allow the whole to prosper. Other people with specialize skills make sure I am clothed, fed, sheltered and healthy. I've lost the ability to do this on my own.
Social and cultural evolution lead the way to important physical changes. Domestication of animals literally changed our human bodies. Adults quickly developed the ability to digest dairy. Social hunting techniques drove changes in our bodies that facilitated the ability to throw projectiles, run faster, and sweat.
The authors show how adherence to social norms was (and continues to be) a powerful driver that’s now hardwired into our brains. New research shows that infants will punish a wrongdoer and reward those who follow the rules.
This book needed to be edited a bit more astutely. Quite a few times it wandered off into the weeds. The authors have so much knowledge that it’s just hard for them not to reveal everything they know. It was a bit of a bipolar read - either delightfully engrossing or annoyingly tangential. Had the book been 25% shorter, it would have been stronger.
Still, I learned a lot. It revolutionized my opinion on the power of sociality to accelerate human evolution. Humanity’s ability to work as a team is our greatest superpower. We bicker, fight and kill each other, but underneath all that bluster are powerfully effective social systems that continue to allow homos sapiens to learn, survive catastrophes, and care for each other.
February 14, 2019
There have been a number of recent books that have added to, or somewhat amended, Darwinian evolution, including The Tangled Tree and The Evolution of Beauty. In that same vein, Henrich argues that culture has played a large role in the success of our species. We have surpassed other ape species in part due to our ability to learn from others, and to create larger groups to learn from and continue the knowledge. To some extent culture has led to biological or genetic evolution.
The majority of this book is Henrich talking about study after study that help back up his points. I felt like I was getting face bashed by so many studies and I almost couldn't take it anymore. I think Henrich made his point overall, but this was not an enjoyable read for me.
The majority of this book is Henrich talking about study after study that help back up his points. I felt like I was getting face bashed by so many studies and I almost couldn't take it anymore. I think Henrich made his point overall, but this was not an enjoyable read for me.
September 14, 2017
"We stand on the shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits."
A must-read.
A must-read.
September 1, 2021
This is a book that makes a strong argument for gene-culture co-evolution, looking at vast amounts of data and many examples from history from all over the world to support the theory that culture—not the intellect of individuals or the intellect of particular “genetically-superior” peoples—is the secret of humanity’s success. Henrich argues that our brains evolved to be better at cultural learning, comprehend the culture, and follow traditions.
Some of the time, those traditions make little sense, but we still follow them. For example, divination practices such as using the cracks on a heated caribou shoulder bone as a map to locate caribou by Naskapi caribou hunters and the use of crystal balls 🔮 by army generals in ancient times. We now know that those divination techniques offered randomized algorithms that inadvertently resulted in powerful game-theoretic strategies forged through the processes of variation and selection over millennia.
This explains why humans are so irrational. The rational ones would have been filtered out of the gene pool because they would have committed taboos like questioning traditions, such as telling people that "crystal balls don't actually work" or that "Earth isn't the centre of the universe" and as a result were subjected to one of the following forms of capital punishment: death by stoning, crucifixion, being burned at the stake, or slowly being crushed by elephants.
Evolution works mechanically for all species other than humans—a physical process of variation and selection that they have little awareness of and input into. However, we humans are a new kind of animal because we can influence evolution through the cultural values/institutions we create. The idea here is that for us humans, there is a duet between culture and biology. When you learn to read—a cultural practice—you will have a larger corpus callosum than someone who never learned to read.
Remember that Henrich is NOT saying that all social norms and traditions have some crazy hidden benefits that we don’t yet understand. Henrich admits that not all norms are beneficial and that many traditions are either arbitrary or outright detrimental.
Henrich argues that humans are particularly good at learning from others—compared to other animals—making us uniquely adaptive cultural learners. However, we don't learn from anybody. We use certain social indicators such as prestige to pick who we learn from. However, when a prestigious person does something new and non-intuitive, we demand further justification and sacrifices before copying them.
Throughout human history and through the animal kingdom, we see that the elderly mattered a lot more than they do in today's human society, and I find this concerning because it implies increasing instability. Herds of elephants rely heavily on their matriarch to find water and fend off predators due to their many years of experience. Similarly, many human societies relied on the elderly for survival. This makes evolutionary sense because if an individual in the group made it to old age, then it means whatever habits and traditions they followed probably worked (e.g., adding hot chillies to their food, which have antimicrobial properties).
However, in today's complex and fast-moving physical and social environments, problems have vastly increased in complexity and scope, e.g., weapons of mass destruction, environmental crises, powerful technologies. The elderly don't necessarily have the answers today; no one has the answers. Some anarcho-primitivists will tell us we should all go back to the primitive way of life, but that will not happen.
This essay by Max Tegmark captures the predicament we are caught in:
The theme throughout this book is that culture—the secret to our success as a species—was forged through the processes of evolution, i.e., through trial and error. However, as the essay above suggests, trial and error are running out of steam as a strategy for survival as we head faster and faster towards The Great Filter.
Henrich spends the final chapters of the book talking about social institutions. He argues that social norms are especially strong and enduring when they hook into our innate psychology. For example, social norms for fairness toward foreigners will be much harder to spread and sustain than those that demand mothers care for their children.
Henrich further argues that the imposition of new formal institutions—imported from elsewhere—on other populations often creates mismatches. For example, when the USA imported and imposed state-of-the-art democratic institutions from the West in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the expectation was that the people of Iraq would suddenly change their social norms and adapt to these new institutions, but that was not what happened.
Henrich thinks that we are bad at designing effective institutions and hopes that we will get better at this as we gain a deeper understanding of human nature and culture. Henrich thinks that until we gain this deeper understanding, our best hope is to learn from the processes of evolution by experimenting with different types of institutions and seeing what works best.
If culture is so great, one might wonder, "Why don't other animals have culture?" Henrich's answer to this question is that a kind of evolutionary chasm has to be crossed to become a cultural species. Crossing this chasm has a few prerequisites, e.g., large tribes and external pressures that force members to pursue peer learning.
This talk by Henrich gives a much better overview than I ever could: [https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c](https:/... .
If you are interested in reading more about this awesome book, consider this much better review by Scott Alexander [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04... .
Some of the time, those traditions make little sense, but we still follow them. For example, divination practices such as using the cracks on a heated caribou shoulder bone as a map to locate caribou by Naskapi caribou hunters and the use of crystal balls 🔮 by army generals in ancient times. We now know that those divination techniques offered randomized algorithms that inadvertently resulted in powerful game-theoretic strategies forged through the processes of variation and selection over millennia.
This explains why humans are so irrational. The rational ones would have been filtered out of the gene pool because they would have committed taboos like questioning traditions, such as telling people that "crystal balls don't actually work" or that "Earth isn't the centre of the universe" and as a result were subjected to one of the following forms of capital punishment: death by stoning, crucifixion, being burned at the stake, or slowly being crushed by elephants.
Evolution works mechanically for all species other than humans—a physical process of variation and selection that they have little awareness of and input into. However, we humans are a new kind of animal because we can influence evolution through the cultural values/institutions we create. The idea here is that for us humans, there is a duet between culture and biology. When you learn to read—a cultural practice—you will have a larger corpus callosum than someone who never learned to read.
Remember that Henrich is NOT saying that all social norms and traditions have some crazy hidden benefits that we don’t yet understand. Henrich admits that not all norms are beneficial and that many traditions are either arbitrary or outright detrimental.
Henrich argues that humans are particularly good at learning from others—compared to other animals—making us uniquely adaptive cultural learners. However, we don't learn from anybody. We use certain social indicators such as prestige to pick who we learn from. However, when a prestigious person does something new and non-intuitive, we demand further justification and sacrifices before copying them.
Throughout human history and through the animal kingdom, we see that the elderly mattered a lot more than they do in today's human society, and I find this concerning because it implies increasing instability. Herds of elephants rely heavily on their matriarch to find water and fend off predators due to their many years of experience. Similarly, many human societies relied on the elderly for survival. This makes evolutionary sense because if an individual in the group made it to old age, then it means whatever habits and traditions they followed probably worked (e.g., adding hot chillies to their food, which have antimicrobial properties).
However, in today's complex and fast-moving physical and social environments, problems have vastly increased in complexity and scope, e.g., weapons of mass destruction, environmental crises, powerful technologies. The elderly don't necessarily have the answers today; no one has the answers. Some anarcho-primitivists will tell us we should all go back to the primitive way of life, but that will not happen.
This essay by Max Tegmark captures the predicament we are caught in:
There’s a race going on that will determine the fate of humanity.
The race between the growing power of technology and the growing wisdom with which we manage it. The power is growing because our human minds have an amazing ability to understand the world and to convert this understanding into game-changing technology. Technological progress is accelerating for the simple reason that breakthroughs enable other breakthroughs. As technology gets twice as powerful, it can often be used to design and build technology that is twice as powerful in turn, triggering repeated capability doubling.
What about the wisdom of ensuring that our technology is beneficial? We have the technology to thank for all how today is better than the Stone Age, but this is thanks to the technology itself and the wisdom we use it. Our traditional strategy for developing such wisdom has been learning from mistakes: We invented fire, then realized the wisdom of having fire alarms and fire extinguishers. We invented the automobile and then realized the wisdom of driving schools, seat belts, and airbags.
In other words, it was OK for wisdom to sometimes lag in the race because it would catch up when needed. With more powerful technologies such as nuclear weapons, synthetic biology, and future strong artificial intelligence, however, learning from mistakes is not a desirable strategy: we want to develop our wisdom in advance so that we can get things right the first time because that might be the only time we’ll have. In other words, we need to change our approach to tech risk from reactive to proactive. Wisdom needs to progress faster.
The theme throughout this book is that culture—the secret to our success as a species—was forged through the processes of evolution, i.e., through trial and error. However, as the essay above suggests, trial and error are running out of steam as a strategy for survival as we head faster and faster towards The Great Filter.
Henrich spends the final chapters of the book talking about social institutions. He argues that social norms are especially strong and enduring when they hook into our innate psychology. For example, social norms for fairness toward foreigners will be much harder to spread and sustain than those that demand mothers care for their children.
Henrich further argues that the imposition of new formal institutions—imported from elsewhere—on other populations often creates mismatches. For example, when the USA imported and imposed state-of-the-art democratic institutions from the West in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein, the expectation was that the people of Iraq would suddenly change their social norms and adapt to these new institutions, but that was not what happened.
Henrich thinks that we are bad at designing effective institutions and hopes that we will get better at this as we gain a deeper understanding of human nature and culture. Henrich thinks that until we gain this deeper understanding, our best hope is to learn from the processes of evolution by experimenting with different types of institutions and seeing what works best.
If culture is so great, one might wonder, "Why don't other animals have culture?" Henrich's answer to this question is that a kind of evolutionary chasm has to be crossed to become a cultural species. Crossing this chasm has a few prerequisites, e.g., large tribes and external pressures that force members to pursue peer learning.
This talk by Henrich gives a much better overview than I ever could: [https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c](https:/... .
If you are interested in reading more about this awesome book, consider this much better review by Scott Alexander [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04... .
January 20, 2022
"We are smart, but not because we stand on the shoulders of giants or are giants ourselves. We stand on the shoulders of a very large pyramid of hobbits."
A highly informative and engaging read! Very much recommend to anyone interested in the evolution of humans and culture. I found the book really useful for understanding the processes by which we diverged from other ape species and how we crossed the threshold of social learning and cumulative culture.
A highly informative and engaging read! Very much recommend to anyone interested in the evolution of humans and culture. I found the book really useful for understanding the processes by which we diverged from other ape species and how we crossed the threshold of social learning and cumulative culture.
January 1, 2023
Really interesting exploration of the coevolution of culture and biology. Had been familiar with the concept somewhat through other works including the author's later book but it was good to see it really explained thoroughly with many concrete examples. I have a much better understanding of the history of how our species got to the way it is and what that means for us.
February 7, 2021
An amazing, thought provoking book.
On one hand can be read as a set of stories. On the other, you can perceive it as multiple angles of verifying and answering questions about the culture. How it influences us and why. Is is a separate process or intertwined with the evolution, gene selection and psychology.
What I like the most about the book is that it doesn't argue much about being the only approach but rather shows all the places and situations where the culture is the driver, leaving much of the reasoning to the reader. One could wish to read more books like this one.
On one hand can be read as a set of stories. On the other, you can perceive it as multiple angles of verifying and answering questions about the culture. How it influences us and why. Is is a separate process or intertwined with the evolution, gene selection and psychology.
What I like the most about the book is that it doesn't argue much about being the only approach but rather shows all the places and situations where the culture is the driver, leaving much of the reasoning to the reader. One could wish to read more books like this one.
May 4, 2022
This book is an obituary to the Nature vs Nurture dichotomy. Nurture is a part of nature. It is commonplace within areas such as the social sciences to misplace biology at the center, when conceptualizing human nature, and then critiquing the concept of a human nature using cultural explanations, but culture is the “other side of the coin” of human nature. This book proves cultural adaptations were and continue to be an essential aspect of human evolution. Cultural traditions, technological innovations and social institutions are tools that reinforce and empower our biology in order to overcome evolutionary pressures.
What is not discussed in this book are the implications of this. The complete undermining of, “kicking the legs out from under”, the Social Constructionists and Cultural Relativists. If culture is nature and has an evolutionary purpose then these two theoretical perspectives must be dismissed. Following this logic, when looking at group or cultural differences it is a mistake to reject these differences on the basis of a lack of biological evidence(genetic) (e.g. sex differences, race differences) as the Social Constructionists do because of their fundamentally fallacious view that culture is disconnected from biology and human nature. And we should be wary of those (Cultural Relativists) who forfeit the relevance of a particular culture when concerning human progress.
What is not discussed in this book are the implications of this. The complete undermining of, “kicking the legs out from under”, the Social Constructionists and Cultural Relativists. If culture is nature and has an evolutionary purpose then these two theoretical perspectives must be dismissed. Following this logic, when looking at group or cultural differences it is a mistake to reject these differences on the basis of a lack of biological evidence(genetic) (e.g. sex differences, race differences) as the Social Constructionists do because of their fundamentally fallacious view that culture is disconnected from biology and human nature. And we should be wary of those (Cultural Relativists) who forfeit the relevance of a particular culture when concerning human progress.
August 27, 2017
Wow!
This is a masterpiece. One of the most interesting and informative books I have ever read.
This book challenges the conventional wisdom on the anthropics and evolution of our species, and provides a compelling theory for how social learning has driven a biological change in humans, sparking the development leading to where we are today.
Despite being a big think/theory book, each page is filled with fascinating information hooking the reader for more.
I am confident this book will one day be on a Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates recommendation list and sell 1,000,000 copies and finally get the attention it deserves.
This is a masterpiece. One of the most interesting and informative books I have ever read.
This book challenges the conventional wisdom on the anthropics and evolution of our species, and provides a compelling theory for how social learning has driven a biological change in humans, sparking the development leading to where we are today.
Despite being a big think/theory book, each page is filled with fascinating information hooking the reader for more.
I am confident this book will one day be on a Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates recommendation list and sell 1,000,000 copies and finally get the attention it deserves.
January 2, 2020
One of the most fascinating books I have ever read. I think I didn't feel so impressed by any book since Guns, Germs and Steel or Selfish Gene. I would rate it better than Blank Slate, Sapiens, Homo Dues, Righteous Mind to list some.
July 5, 2022
Если спросить кого угодно чем мы в первую очередь отличаемся от обезьян, то ответ скорее всего будет — мы просто супер-умные. Автор же здесь последовательно, развёрнуто и убедительно показывает, что это заблуждение. На самом деле мы от приматов отличаемся тем, что у нас называется культура — гигантским багажом знаний и умений выживания, а также разнообразнейших норм поведения.
Разница здесь принципиальная, и наглядным образом демонстрируется довольно просто: давайте возьмём вас и ваших коллег общим числом человек 30, а также 30 макак и сыграем в игру "Остаться в живых" — выкинем вас в незнакомой для всех безлюдной среде какого-нибудь умеренного климата и оставим там на год. Победителем будет считаться та группа, членов которой через год в живых будет больше. На кого поставите?
Такого рода эксперименты за последние пару сотен лет возникали сами собой неоднократно и почти всегда заканчивались плачевно. Единственный шанс для потерпевших кораблекрушение или авиакатастрофу — выйти на контакт с "примитивными" местными аборигенами, которые в данной "враждебной для человека среде" процветают тысячелетиями. Удаётся им это благодаря накопленным знаниям и навыкам, которые давно превысили умственные и изобретательские возможности любого, сколь угодно гениального человека.
Ещё сейчас некоторые переживают, что мол научно-технический прогресс идёт во вред эволюции человека — те особи, которые раньше не выжили бы, сейчас медики спасают, они дают потомство, и багаж нежизнеспособных генов накапливается. Автор опять же на примерах показывает, что этот процесс начался ещё на заре возникновения человека 2 миллиона лет назад, когда люди начали терять мощные зубы, мышцы и развитую, защищённую от токсинов пищеварительную систему — их функции на себя взяли разнообразные, сложные орудия труда и хитрые, многоступенчатые способы приготовления пищи. Ничего нового в современном прогрессе нет, а эволюция идёт по иным направлениям.
Из других занимательных фактов: у ближайших к нам приматов не бывает правшей и левшей, приоритетная рука возникла у человека как раз для работы над инструментами. Волосяной покров мы потеряли скорее всего для улучшенной терморегуляции — чтобы загонять крупных животных в саванне (но вот незадача, у нас нет горбов как у верблюда, и где же человек хранит необходимую воду? выходит, внешние сосуды для воды появились и культурным образом распространились ещё до того, как началось облысение).
В общем, книга дово��ьно занимательная, и она выправляет представление об эволюции человека, о том, что такое общество и в чём на самом деле сила, брат. Особенно будет полезно для тех, кто до сих пор мыслит категориями эгоистичного гена а также мечтает о самодостаточности во всех областях жизни.
P.S. Как думаете, кому в незнакомой среде при взаимодействии с незнакомым объектом или потенциальной едой будут больше подражать годовалые младенцы — своей маме или незнакомому человеку? Практика показывает, что конечно же незнакомому человеку; младенец интуитивно понимает, что мама здесь не обладает необходимыми знаниями, в отличие от вероятного "туземца".
P.P.S. Без лейблов людям как правило нравится более дешёвое вино, с лейблами явно вкуснее становится более дорогое (даже если налить туда из той же бочки). Плацебо в целых категориях лекарств (особенно, болеутоляющее) работает не хуже химически активных препаратов — причём, задействует ровно те же самые гормональные системы и мозговые цепи. И наоборот, если человеку дать химически активное лекарство неосознанно, далеко не всегда оно вообще сработает.
[читал по рекомендации А. Маркова; на русском книга по-моему так ещё и не вышла, хотя издательство анонсировало её на 2021 год]
Разница здесь принципиальная, и наглядным образом демонстрируется довольно просто: давайте возьмём вас и ваших коллег общим числом человек 30, а также 30 макак и сыграем в игру "Остаться в живых" — выкинем вас в незнакомой для всех безлюдной среде какого-нибудь умеренного климата и оставим там на год. Победителем будет считаться та группа, членов которой через год в живых будет больше. На кого поставите?
Такого рода эксперименты за последние пару сотен лет возникали сами собой неоднократно и почти всегда заканчивались плачевно. Единственный шанс для потерпевших кораблекрушение или авиакатастрофу — выйти на контакт с "примитивными" местными аборигенами, которые в данной "враждебной для человека среде" процветают тысячелетиями. Удаётся им это благодаря накопленным знаниям и навыкам, которые давно превысили умственные и изобретательские возможности любого, сколь угодно гениального человека.
Ещё сейчас некоторые переживают, что мол научно-технический прогресс идёт во вред эволюции человека — те особи, которые раньше не выжили бы, сейчас медики спасают, они дают потомство, и багаж нежизнеспособных генов накапливается. Автор опять же на примерах показывает, что этот процесс начался ещё на заре возникновения человека 2 миллиона лет назад, когда люди начали терять мощные зубы, мышцы и развитую, защищённую от токсинов пищеварительную систему — их функции на себя взяли разнообразные, сложные орудия труда и хитрые, многоступенчатые способы приготовления пищи. Ничего нового в современном прогрессе нет, а эволюция идёт по иным направлениям.
Из других занимательных фактов: у ближайших к нам приматов не бывает правшей и левшей, приоритетная рука возникла у человека как раз для работы над инструментами. Волосяной покров мы потеряли скорее всего для улучшенной терморегуляции — чтобы загонять крупных животных в саванне (но вот незадача, у нас нет горбов как у верблюда, и где же человек хранит необходимую воду? выходит, внешние сосуды для воды появились и культурным образом распространились ещё до того, как началось облысение).
В общем, книга дово��ьно занимательная, и она выправляет представление об эволюции человека, о том, что такое общество и в чём на самом деле сила, брат. Особенно будет полезно для тех, кто до сих пор мыслит категориями эгоистичного гена а также мечтает о самодостаточности во всех областях жизни.
P.S. Как думаете, кому в незнакомой среде при взаимодействии с незнакомым объектом или потенциальной едой будут больше подражать годовалые младенцы — своей маме или незнакомому человеку? Практика показывает, что конечно же незнакомому человеку; младенец интуитивно понимает, что мама здесь не обладает необходимыми знаниями, в отличие от вероятного "туземца".
P.P.S. Без лейблов людям как правило нравится более дешёвое вино, с лейблами явно вкуснее становится более дорогое (даже если налить туда из той же бочки). Плацебо в целых категориях лекарств (особенно, болеутоляющее) работает не хуже химически активных препаратов — причём, задействует ровно те же самые гормональные системы и мозговые цепи. И наоборот, если человеку дать химически активное лекарство неосознанно, далеко не всегда оно вообще сработает.
[читал по рекомендации А. Маркова; на русском книга по-моему так ещё и не вышла, хотя издательство анонсировало её на 2021 год]
April 12, 2020
After reading Cecilia Heyes' wonderful book "Cognitive Gadgets", I somehow formed the impression that where that book was about the "mills" of cultural evolution, Henrich's book focused on what Heyes called the "grist." I'm still interested in the grist, of course--the evolutionary stories of things like folk tales, languages, stone tools, etc, etc, are all extremely fascinating, but once I'd had a taste of the bigger picture, I was a bit hesitant to take the more myopic view.
Fortunately, that expectation was wildly off base. Secret of Our Success is interested in exactly the same big-picture questions of cultural evolution as Cognitive Gadgets, but with a far more accessible and inclusive approach. Henrich cites the usual lab microcosm studies of human and primate behavior, but framing the theoretical context of that work and extending its implications feels less overbearing here than in more academically targetted books. Where those books (I'm thinking of CG but also Tomasello's Natural History of Morality) often feel like tentative, first steps in a big question, largely focused on narrow academic distinctions, it feels like Henrich has a mature theory with huge, obvious implications that he's exuberant about sharing. I knew a decent amount of this already, but there was still plenty of new and interesting points and evidence.
I particularly enjoyed the way Henrich talks about intelligence. It's something that has frustrated me for a while, seeing a lot of people on my political side making embarassing arguments in an effort to discredit what they see as eugenic-associated intelligence science. Cultural evolution provides the key to disentangling "an animal did an impressive thing" and "an individual animal has an impressive capacity to learn" and in the process sorts out, in broad strokes, all the things that make intelligence a contentious concept. It doesn't just handwave about "culture" in a way that reads like a racist dogwhistle; it actually explains, mechanistically, how and why cultures differ.
Overall, it's a glorious celebration of cultural evolution as an answer to all the questions in human history that make sense without it. Easily recommended as the place to start in this field if you haven't read it yet and honestly something anyone with a passing interest in anything related to human behavior owes it to themselves to look into. Learning evolution as a child gives you a certain awe, but it can't match the thrill someone like TH Huxley might have felt as an adult naturalist reading Darwin for the first time. Finally getting this piece that makes obvious, intuitive sense of everything you've spent your life pondering. I'd sort of written that off in a "born too late to explore the world" way, but, well, here it is.
Fortunately, that expectation was wildly off base. Secret of Our Success is interested in exactly the same big-picture questions of cultural evolution as Cognitive Gadgets, but with a far more accessible and inclusive approach. Henrich cites the usual lab microcosm studies of human and primate behavior, but framing the theoretical context of that work and extending its implications feels less overbearing here than in more academically targetted books. Where those books (I'm thinking of CG but also Tomasello's Natural History of Morality) often feel like tentative, first steps in a big question, largely focused on narrow academic distinctions, it feels like Henrich has a mature theory with huge, obvious implications that he's exuberant about sharing. I knew a decent amount of this already, but there was still plenty of new and interesting points and evidence.
I particularly enjoyed the way Henrich talks about intelligence. It's something that has frustrated me for a while, seeing a lot of people on my political side making embarassing arguments in an effort to discredit what they see as eugenic-associated intelligence science. Cultural evolution provides the key to disentangling "an animal did an impressive thing" and "an individual animal has an impressive capacity to learn" and in the process sorts out, in broad strokes, all the things that make intelligence a contentious concept. It doesn't just handwave about "culture" in a way that reads like a racist dogwhistle; it actually explains, mechanistically, how and why cultures differ.
Overall, it's a glorious celebration of cultural evolution as an answer to all the questions in human history that make sense without it. Easily recommended as the place to start in this field if you haven't read it yet and honestly something anyone with a passing interest in anything related to human behavior owes it to themselves to look into. Learning evolution as a child gives you a certain awe, but it can't match the thrill someone like TH Huxley might have felt as an adult naturalist reading Darwin for the first time. Finally getting this piece that makes obvious, intuitive sense of everything you've spent your life pondering. I'd sort of written that off in a "born too late to explore the world" way, but, well, here it is.
May 13, 2021
I dish out 5-star reviews on Goodreads very rarely, but Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success - despite it's banal, and frankly sloppy title - is wholly deserving. In many ways, this is the book that Sapiens tried to be, but failed. In terms of the amount of scientific rigour it packs, while not being entirely infallible, it remains leagues ahead of Harari's work: I cannot remember the last time I actually gleaned scientific insight from a popular science book that fundamentally altered how I think about the story of human evolution. This is a book that persuaded me to change my attitudes towards things, and I was a bit scared of just how convinced I was by Henrich's arguments.
April 26, 2020
Amazingly comprehensive and insightful. Answers the question as to why humans are unique and how we go there.
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