Download How Many Friends Does One Person Need by Robin Dunbar

Sinopsis

he dragged the theory of evolution out of the medieval doldrums into the modern world. He provided a mechanism that could explain how life on earth could have evolved without need for a creator. And it was a mechanism that, at the same time, could explain how and why a species might have evolved particular traits, traits that enabled individual animals to reproduce more successfully. As with all scientific ideas, Darwin’s theory underwent extensive development in the decades after the publication of the Origin. He expanded his ideas on natural selection to include sexual selection (selection for traits that enhance attractiveness to prospective mates). He applied his ideas to the nascent discipline of psychology – commenting at length on topics such as music, language, emotions and physical attractiveness – and even finally the evolution of Man.

Nor did his theory come to a halt with his death in 1882. It continued to be developed by those who came after him. We know so much more now than Darwin himself ever did, but the core of modern evolutionary theory and its many intellectual derivatives still lies firmly in Darwin’s elegantly simple idea: organisms behave in ways that tend to enhance the frequencies with which the genes they carry are passed on to future generations.

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