rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    non sort: The
    title: Human Condition
  name:
    name part: Bednarik, Robert G.
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  name:
    name part: SpringerLink (Online service)
  type of resource: text
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: xxu
    date issued: 2011
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: electronic
    form: electronic resource
    reformatting quality: access
    form: remote
    extent: XX, 207 p. online resource.
  abstract: Although the human condition can also be considered in metaphysical, ideological or ontological terms, in this book it is examined from a purely scientific perspective: what has occurred in the evolution of our species that led to the emergence of such a remarkable primate? In reviewing the limited empirical evidence we have about our distant past, some favored interpretations are replaced with hitherto unexplored alternatives. The relatively recent reduction of human brain size and physical robusticity, loss of estrus, development of neoteny and of numerous deleterious or maladaptive genetic syndromes, including neurodegenerative illnesses, are all attributed to one cause: the rise of culturally mediated behavior, including deliberate mate choice based on cultural constructs. This shift, introduced roughly 40,000 years ago, replaced both natural selection and genetic drift with the laws of domestication. Homo sapiens sapiens is thus the product of his own but unintended self-domestication. This revolutionary new hypothesis solves several conundrums in paleoanthropology, neuroscience and the cognitive sciences. But in a broader perspective, it also explains how the contradictions, tensions and enigmas of human existence came into existence and can be rationally accounted for. The Human Condition, therefore, strives to explain the very origins and characteristics of what it means to be human. About the Author Robert G. Bednarik, born in Vienna but an Australian since 1970, contradicts norms. He has undertaken numerous expeditions crossing the sea on rafts built with stone tools, but he cannot swim; he has produced 1165 academic publications, including many books, but has no formal education; he edits three scientific journals and two series of monographs, but not in his native language. As a complete autodidact, he regards himself as ignorant as did Socrates. Consequently his principal interest is the origin of the human ability to create constructs of reality, and i…
  table of contents: 1 A little epistemology -- The expulsion of Eve -- 3 The hard evidence -- 4 Seafaring, beads and external hard drives -- 5 An alternative paradigm -- 6 The bigger picture -- 7 Advanced cognition and neurodegenerative diseases: a Faustian deal .
  note: by Robert G. Bednarik.
  subject:
    topic: Life sciences
  subject:
    topic: Evolutionary biology
  subject:
    topic: Life Sciences
  subject:
    topic: Evolutionary Biology
  classification: QH359-425
  classification: 576.8
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Springer eBooks
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects
  identifier: 9781441993533
  identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9353-3
  record info:
    record creation date: 110627
    record change date: 20151125201432.0
    record identifier: 978-1-4419-9353-3