Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating and readable discussion of neuroscience
Review: Explaining the field of cultural biology and the evidence from neuroscience that supports it, the authors have written a book that is accessible to all readers, regardless of their background. Every page gives a fascinating look at the causes/motivations behind human behavior and the authors argue convincingly for their thesis that this behavior has both environmental and genetic origins. They also include ample references for the reader who wants to pursue the subject in more detail.
The authors do not hesitate to embed their discussion of cultural biology in the historical backdrop in which it arose. As the authors report, some of the early research in the subject was met with harsh criticism, as for example the reaction against the book on sociobiology by E.O. Wilson. The vituperation leveled against Wilson by prominent intellectuals has no place in scientific debate and should not be engaged in under any circumstances.
The ability to image the brain and to model it with sophisticated computational tools has led to more knowledge about it in the last ten years than all of previous history, the authors argue. Brain imaging techniques such as MRI, PET, and optical topography have given experimental support for theories of the brain, giving much more valuable information that is needed to understand various diseases and abnormalities of the brain. Philosophical speculation and rhetoric have been eliminated in favor of careful scientific analysis and measurements, fortunately.
The book is packed full of interesting examples and surprises, and space does not permit a detailed review of these, but a few of them include: 1. The fact that the brain can detect and respond correctly to regular patterns in the environment without a person's conscious awareness of them. Experiments illustrating this are discussed in the book. 2. Neural network models of the basal ganglia indicate that it learns in essentially the same way as the brain of a bee. 3. The fact that the brain functions at different time scales, depending on the problem that it is presented with, from milliseconds all the way to minutes. This wide gap in processing time no doubt reflects evolutionary pressures that optimized the brain to prioritize some problems relative to others. 4. The suggestion that the anterior cingulate in humans may be the site of free will. 5. The suggestion that the "area 10" region in the front of the prefrontal cortex is the origin of our sense of self and our self-awareness. 6. The fact that half of the cortex is devoted to visualization. 7. The experimental evidence that indicates that environmental stimulation induces the maturing of brain cells in the hippocampus. 8. The fact that the brain is 90% of its final size at age five, and keeps growing until adolescence. 9. The rise of the "neural constructivist" view that the brain uses information from the world to build itself. Called "self-organization" by those who work in the field of dynamical systems, the constructivist point of view holds that the interaction with the world is a special type of learning that changes the brain and assists in building it. The authors refer to the brain/environment interaction as "constructive learning", and believe that the slow time scales needed for cortical development optimizes the influence of the world on the human brain, and thus make being human possible. The more time the brain has to develop, the likelihood of helpful inputs from the world to guide the construction of highly complex neural circuits increases. The result of this is a mind that can deal efficiently and accurately with the complexities of human existence. 10. The evidence that the development of the brain is non-uniform, but rather occurs hierarchically. The portions of the brain dealing with sensory information develop earlier than those that are responsible for the encoding of more abstract information. 11. The reason for suicidal behavior lies in the prefrontal cortex, which is also involved in mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. 12. The origin of drug addiction being in the ventral tegmental area of the basal ganglia. 13. The effects of serotonin and its manufacture in the brain by a group of neurons called the dorsal Raphe nucleus. Interestingly, despite being a small cluster of neurons, it is able to influence billions of neurons in the cerebral cortex. 14. The TD-Gammon learning machine and its ability to teach itself backgammon. The authors believe that the TD-Gammon machine exhibits real machine intelligence, and it is the opinion of this reviewer that they are quite correct in asserting this. 15. The origin of human personality as being from the anterior cingulate cortex, which uses previous experiences in order to construct the appropriate cognitive and emotional responses to novel situations. Attention to difficult problems is correlated with high activity in the anterior cingulate. 16. The fact that the male and female brains are the result of hormones, such as testosterone. The male brain becomes "masculinized" under the influence of testosterone, but only indirectly: the brain converts testosterone into estrogen, interestingly. The authors are careful to point out that testosterone and estrogen do not act at all places in the brain, and that sexual identity has its origin mostly in the hypothalamus. 17. The suggestion that it is the concurrent release of opiates and the oxytocin that produce the sensation of orgasm. 18. The origin of romantic love as being in the various chemical processes of the brain, and the experiments involving transgenic mice that supported this viewpoint. 19. The evidence from neuroscience that supports the "Aristotelian" conception of human nature, i.e. that family ties, friendship, and trust are more characteristic of humans than antisocial or individualistic behavior. Humans need to identify with something larger than their private existence, the authors argue. 20. The neuroscientific explanations for involvement in cults and for conformity to groups. 21. The authors' view of "constructive intelligence", and how it is at odds with the modern "IQ" version of intelligence.
Rating: 
Summary: bland and unconvincing
Review: I had really hoped to find a convincing argument for what has been called "the West Pole", the connectionist argument against evolutionary psychology. But, I'm afraid, this book isn't it.Most of their arguments are strangely disconnected from their conclusions. The authors describe how neurons work, and make a good case for the fact that brain cells are flexible. But they really don't explain how they can therefore conclude that the brain is not extensively programmed by the genes. After all, muscle cells in the arms are very similar to (and in fact replaceable by) muscle cells in the legs, but that doesn't mean evolution hasn't tailored the arms and the legs to be specialized. The fact that a person with no legs can compensate by using his arms does not mean arms and legs are defined by culture. And yet this is their argument for brains, as near as I can tell. Perhaps this disconnect is because the science being discussed is reduced to very generalized and simplified results. Unfortunately, since the argument they are proposing is not really very different from the one they are opposing, it will be the details that make the difference. And yet, it is the details that the authors omit from this book. Finally, when they stray from their own subject they are not very careful with the facts. For instance, John Glenn was not the first American in space, nor did he ever "ride atop a Saturn rocket." The authors claim both of those things to be true, however. They also introduce a chapter with the example of the kids who attacked the jogger in Central Park. Oops -- DNA evidence has now (apparently) cleared those kids and the state of New York has apologized for their prosecution. [This last one is more understandable than the John Glenn error, because the new information was discovered after this book was published. But it is an example of their arguments resting on shaky, non-scientific ground.] Another claim they make (that "parentese" is widespread and necessary for the development of language in children) is directly disputed by the linguistics studies of the evolutionary psychologist camp. And frankly, since the linguistics books present more details and more evidence (as well as referencing more and newer studies), I am forced to conclude that these authors were probably wrong about parentese, too. The biggest problem with the book, though, is the underlying problem that none of their actual scientific findings (as presented without detail in this book) are actually incompatible with evolutionary psychology. Which makes it hard to understand why they claim to have "saved us from the tyranny of our genes."
Rating: 
Summary: False Advertising
Review: I like this book a lot, but it isn't really what I was looking for exactly. I was looking for a 255 level college course book and got a 104 level college course book. The book seems to never really talk about liars, lovers or heroes, but it does catch me up on lots of unknown and interesting brain studies and psychological studies that seem to show a small window into the brain as an oddly wired organ. The author should delete the first introductory chapter as fluff and shallowness, but then they probably didn't have a say in the name of the book. The publish must have picked it to try and sell it with the bright yellow cover ? Anyway, the nuggets of info are pretty good and some of the witty sentences are great. Some not so great, but not too bad for two PHDs trying to write.
*smile Hopefully their next brain book will be more edible and chewy and harder to read. I like my brain to work hard ok ! *grin
Rating: 
Summary: Wrong title
Review: I like this book a lot, but it isn't really what I was looking for exactly. I was looking for a 255 level college course book and got a 104 level college course book. The book seems to never really talk about liars, lovers or heroes, but it does catch me up on lots of unknown and interesting brain studies and psychological studies that seem to show a small window into the brain as an oddly wired organ. The author should delete the first introductory chapter as fluff and shallowness, but then they probably didn't have a say in the name of the book. The publish must have picked it to try and sell it with the bright yellow cover ? Anyway, the nuggets of info are pretty good and some of the witty sentences are great. Some not so great, but not too bad for two PHDs trying to write.
*smile Hopefully their next brain book will be more edible and chewy and harder to read. I like my brain to work hard ok ! *grin
Rating:
Summary: interesting but too superficial
Review: I would have found this book far more satisfying if the authors had delved into their own research in more detail and didnt try to relate a few (fascinating) findings from brain science to every current topic in the news from terrorism to depression to consumerism. Less sound bites and "this is new!" and references to "pundits" and more analysis. Also, they present a glib dismissal of evolutionary psychology without delving into their real differences with its theorists. In trying to aim for
a popular audience they run the risk of alienating a
sophisticated readership.
Rating:
Summary: False Advertising
Review: Liars, Lovers and heroes
(What the new brain science reveals about how we become who we are)
:: Speaks in very professional sounding voice::
This book reviewed nature vs. nurture and how evolution and genes may predispose us to a certain personality. It discussed how enormously complex the connections between genes and behavior that make humans what they are.
:: Cuts the crap and talks in real voice::
I would not recommend this book to anyone. The title leads us to believe that this would be a really interesting book full of great tips on how to improve our personality and what we are doing wrong that makes us a liar and not a lover or a hero.
The truth is, this book had almost nothing to do with human personalities and more to do with responses mice had to flashing light patterns or why a fly would turn left or right when it sensed danger. This very educational, and yellow book, was set up so that each chapter had an unnecessarily long paragraph at the beginning explaining what it was about to explain, even though it could have been summed up in two to three sentences. There were also lots of unneeded metaphors added to these paragraphs that seemed to me like they were put in just to make the author sound more clever or for the book about nothing to seem really long and important. (I¡¯ve written many essays that were made by taking one paragraph and turning it into two pages. I know filler when I see it, which is why I should get back to the point¡¦)
My brain is like a Swiss army knife? A collection of special gadgets? Replete with hundreds of metal corkscrews and cognitive tweezers? DUH! I just wasted a whole minute reading a paragraph with sentence after sentence telling me how my brain was like a Swiss army knife. Leave that to a poetry book man, not a scientific one.
¡°Francis Crick¡¯s intuition told him that the connections between neurons were a key to understanding the brain.¡± Good job genius. That wasn¡¯t your intuition. It¡¯s called common sense.
This book must be good for what I call math-people. They are really book smart and have great memories but lack any sort of common sense. This book is basically pointing out common sense theories about the brain and the justifying them. Then giving elaborate stories about various scientists¡¯ lives and how they experienced the result of whatever brain process they were discussing it the chapter.
This book had many good ideas about what could possibly be causing this reaction or that reaction. It had examples of a few studies that have been tested on specific things like subconscious pattern-remembering but a lot of it was a bunch of ¡°what ifs¡± and ¡°it could bes.¡± I found myself wanting to skip over many parts because it would explain the same idea more then once. Most of What they were saying I had heard before and didn¡¯t learn a lot of new stuff. Also, a lot of their ideas I didn¡¯t completely agree with.
I¡¯m going to give you an example of a chapter in this book. Chapter three ¡°how to make a human¡±
It starts out comparing a brain to a computer. WOW! GOSH MR.PHD QUARTS, I¡¯VE NEVER THOUGH OF IT THAT WAY! (This analogy takes five pages of obvious statements about the similarity between computers and brains.) Then it goes into the similarity between us and chimps. (This takes two pages)It does though, give an interesting story about how a family raised a chimp along side their son and the son started to act more like a chimp than the chimp acted like a human. As for example, the 17 month old son would give the chimpanzee-food-call when hungry instead of simply asking for food.
This, also, is mostly obvious because an intelligent animal can always be trained to act less intelligent than it actually is, but a stupid animal can never be trained to act smart.
At this point I was wondering how any of this has to do with making a human let alone a liar, lover or hero. Fortunately though, I have figured out that most of this book really doesn¡¯t have much to do with anything but I keep reading for the grade.
If you were to skim through the next sub chapter you would come across scientists trying out the idea that neurons might actually have blueprints inside of them that tell them exactly what to do like this is some new discovery. ::Bangs head against the wall in pursuit of figuring out how these guys managed to get PhDs:: I¡¯m going to give you guys a hint. Listen closely now. IT¡¯S CALLED DNA. Even Mrs. Sautter knows that, don¡¯t cha Mrs. Sautter? Maybe they should have taken your class. This book was printed in 2002 and they hardly even talk about DNA having much to do with it besides how similar ours is with monkeys.
I¡¯m going to stop going through the chapter now because I think you have a good enough idea of what this book consists of. Also for the reason that this book report is already a page too long. Anyway, I hope I get a good grade on this¡¦ Even though the book deserves an F.
:: this book has been reviewed by the critic Hannah Scott ::
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: One of the better non-fiction books I've read in years. Aimed at the gerneral science reader, this book does for Brain evolution and function what "The God Particle" did for particle physics. The authors use a broad approach drawing from many backgrounds with an ample supply of interesting experiments that both entertain and inform. Mulitple views are presented though not argued vigorously. In the end I felt I had achieved broad understanding of the subject but more importantly it changed many of my ideas on brain function. I found myself marking passges every few pages throughout this book. Unlike "The God Particle" I had new ideas that have direct application (although I would guess the authors did not intend for this): such as how best to change my own thought patterns. For background, this is the first book I've read on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: One of the better non-fiction books I've read in years. Aimed at the gerneral science reader, this book does for Brain evolution and function what "The God Particle" did for particle physics. The authors use a broad approach drawing from many backgrounds with an ample supply of interesting experiments that both entertain and inform. Mulitple views are presented though not argued vigorously. In the end I felt I had achieved broad understanding of the subject but more importantly it changed many of my ideas on brain function. I found myself marking passges every few pages throughout this book. Unlike "The God Particle" I had new ideas that have direct application (although I would guess the authors did not intend for this): such as how best to change my own thought patterns. For background, this is the first book I've read on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: Cultural Biology replaces Evolutionary Psychology
Review: The authors use the new brain science, which understands how experience and environment interact developmentally with genetics, to replace 20th century Evolutionary Psychology with 21st century Cultural Biology. This represents a paradigm shift in psychological science. Evolutionary Psychology, with its appeal to stories about human instincts for male-directed sexuality and violence, ran out of intellectual life and scientific validity in the 1990s. Some people, such as fans of Dr. Pinker's Blank Slate, have not yet become aware of the death of Evolutionary Psychology. By reading "Liars ..." one can start to learn about the new (inter) discipline of Cultural Biology. Developmental sensitivity to context, and the inherent flexibility of genetic programs, are two key themes. The significance of bonobos as a species and the influence of the evolution of self-awareness and metacognition are two key things that Cultural Biology understands whereas most who identify with Evolutionary Psychology do not. So Cultural Biology is both smarter and wiser.
Rating:
Summary: Unpersuasive and Illogical
Review: These guys have the unintended effect of bolstering their enemies' credibility. If something can be damned by weak praise, so also can it be praised by weak damning. There's a common fallacy called "the Straw Man." In it, you fail to address your opponent's real claims, but instead set up a "straw man" in his place whose claims are different, but easier to knock down. That's only one of the fallacies here. Their enemies are the 'hereditarians', scientists who claim that some significant proportion of the presently observed universalites and variabilites, in human personalities & behaviors, are attributable to genes alone. It's the "nature vs. nurture" debate. For example, another way of putting it is to say that what we are asking is: "How much more similarly would people behave if they were all born genetically identical?" Sejnowski & Quartz are saying that genes and culture work together in a very close and back & forth way. Duh. That's right. But everybody already admits this. So what? This fact doesn't do what they want it to. You've heard the old canard before: "Nature and nurture are so inextricably mixed up together that we can't tease them apart, so it's impossible to separate them and attribute any particular fraction of the whole to "genes alone." Baloney. The study of identical twins accomplishes this task beautifully. Indentical twins are genetically identical----like clones----and so we know that any differences between them must be due entirely to non-genetic causes. Compare, for example, the IQ test scores, or whatever, of identical twins reared separately (some exist), to the scores of biologically unrelated adoptees reared together, and you get a very interesting result. The twins raised apart resemble each other far more (IQ = 70 percent correlation) than adoptees that grew up together (IQ = 30 percent correlation). How "impossible" was that?
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