Darwin's Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind

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How culture transformed human evolution Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and language to science and technology. How did the human mind--and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture--evolve from its roots in animal behavior? Darwin's Unfinished Symphony presents a captivating new theo

Kevin N. Laland is professor of behavioral and evolutionary biology at the University of St Andrews. His books include Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models and Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution (both Princeton).

"[Laland] describes a decade's worth of his and others' research, culminating in a comprehensive and fascinating solution to the vexing problem of the human mind."--Publishers Weekly "This well-researched book establishes how cognitive processes are essential for 'cumulative' learning, finding links 'between teaching, language, and cumulative culture.' After years of studying human culture and the human mind, Laland concludes that other evolutionarily advanced animals do not possess human attributes, as is often claimed."--Choice "[B]rilliant."--Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, The Jerusalem Post "As Laland reveals, human endeavour is a vast, cooperative effort that cannot be explained by natural selection alone... Our success, he argues, is not down to language, tool-use, empathy or any other single factor, but rather a 'whirlpool' of cultural and biological processes. In this book, he scours the animal kingdom for clues to why we are a species apart."--Stuart Blackman, BBC Wildlife Magazine "Kevin Laland's ambitious new book is, to my mind, the best account yet... A richly rewarding and powerfully argued book."--Steven Rose, Times Higher Education