The Origin of Humankind (Science Masters Series)

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I found Richard Leakey's "The Origin of Humankind" slightly disappointing. The text contains a great deal of speculation. Leakey dwells into subject areas that are not part of his profession and expertise such as neuroscience (cognition, intelligence, consciousness) and linguistics.

The book contains 8 chapters and is only about 170 pages long. The first five chapters I found to insightful and balanced but not fully devoid of Richard's speculations. He presents theories, briefly describes them and provides his opinion on the matter. In preface he states,"Like all sciences, anthropology is subject to honest, and sometimes vigorous, differences of opinion among its practitioners. These stem sometimes from insufficient data, in the form of fossils and stone tools, and sometimes from inadequate of methods of interpretation. There are there fore many important questions about human history for which there are no definitive answers". In the following chapters, he says, I will indicate where, and why, differences of opinions exist, and sometimes I will offer my own preference. One of the reasons why so many things are under continuous debate in paleoanthropology is because many aspects of hominid behavior simply do not fossilize such as language, cognition, and so on.

In chapter 2 titled "Crowded Family" Leakey gives a competent description of Multiregional Evolution and "Out of Africa" theories. However, the phylogenetic tree he provides for Out of Africa theory is outdated. As I understand Homo erectus is no longer thought to be ancestral to Homo sapiens but an extinct offshoot from Homo ergaster. Throughout the text Homo heidelbergensis is referred to as "archaic homo sapiens". Readers who are not knowledgeable about the hominid taxonomy may become confused.

Bibliography section looks normal. Richard uses a blend of magazine article, scholarly books, and journal articles from various publications. In my opinion, Richard's career and views were particularly influenced by his family, especially his father Louis Leakey and wife, Meave Leakey and his colleagues, Alan Walker and Kamoya Kimeu.

Conclusively, I think readers should explore other alternatives. There are much better, fresher, and less speculative books out there. I would also not recommend this Science Masters Series because of books' length and depth. I don't think scholars can present a competent thorough view in less than 200 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I found Richard Leakey?s ?The Origin of Humankind? slightly disappointing. The text contains a great deal of speculation. Leakey dwells into subject areas that are not part of his profession and expertise such as neuroscience (cognition, intelligence, consciousness) and linguistics.

The book contains 8 chapters and is only about 170 pages long. The first five chapters I found to insightful and balanced but not fully devoid of Richard?s speculations. He presents theories, briefly describes them and provides his opinion on the matter. In preface he states,?Like all sciences, anthropology is subject to honest, and sometimes vigorous, differences of opinion among its practitioners. These stem sometimes from insufficient data, in the form of fossils and stone tools, and sometimes from inadequate of methods of interpretation. There are there fore many important questions about human history for which there are no definitive answers?. In the following chapters, he says, I will indicate where, and why, differences of opinions exist, and sometimes I will offer my own preference. One of the reasons why so many things are under continuous debate in paleoanthropology is because many aspects of hominid behavior simply do not fossilize such as language, cognition, and so on.

In chapter 2 titled ?Crowded Family? Leakey gives a competent description of Multiregional Evolution and ?Out of Africa? theories. However, the phylogenetic tree he provides for Out of Africa theory is outdated. As I understand Homo erectus is no longer thought to be ancestral to Homo sapiens but an extinct offshoot from Homo ergaster. Throughout the text Homo heidelbergensis is referred to as ?archaic homo sapiens?. Readers who are not knowledgeable about the hominid taxonomy may become confused.

Bibliography section looks normal. Richard uses a blend of magazine article, scholarly books, and journal articles from various publications. In my opinion, Richard?s career and views were particularly influenced by his family, especially his father Louis Leakey and wife, Meave Leakey and his colleagues, Alan Walker and Kamoya Kimeu.

Conclusively, I think readers should explore other alternatives. There are much better, fresher, and less speculative books out there. I would also not recommend this Science Masters Series because of books? length and depth. I don?t think scholars can present a competent thorough view in less than 200 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction into Human Evolution
Review: If I were an expert on anthropology and human evolution I probably wouldn't be reading a book on it from the Science Masters Series. This is really something of a primer on human evolution for people like me (I'm a Sociology graduate student) that are interested in the topic but really have very little background in biology or anthropology. Admittedly, I did find some of his topics overly interesting because of their apparent relationship to topics addressed by Sociology. One of these was the notion of consciousness. He attributes the idea of the Inner Eye/Inner 'I' to Humphrey, 1986. Perhaps Humphrey pulled a fast one on anthropologists because his interpretation is a rehash of George Herbert Mead's Symbolic Interactionism and his conceptions of consciousness and the 'I' and the 'Me'.

Aside from that criticism, I found the book to be a very enjoyable read. I have something of a background in biology (no expert by any stretch), but with what little background I do have the concepts discussed were not over my head. For individuals that have a good high school and perhaps college education, this book shouldn't be too difficult to digest and should be rather informative. I think I was most intrigued by the discussion of the human mind and consciousness, but the entire book was interesting (in a positive way) to me and I would highly recommend it.

There was one quote from Richard Dawkins in the book that I found particularly insightful (whether true or not, I don't claim to know), "Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself." (p. 142).

And another quote which isn't so much the quote but the content, "Skilled players of the game-those equipped with a more acute mental model, a sharper consciousness-would have enjoyed greater social and reproductive success. This is grist for natural selection, which would have raised consciousness to higher and higher levels. This gradually unfolding consciousness changed us into a new kind of animal. It transformed us into an animal who sets arbitrary standards of behavior based on what is considered to be right and wrong." (p. 154).

Overall, there are undoubtedly other books out there with more up-to-date information. The presentation of the material in this book also reveals that with every passing year the information in the book will become more and more outdated - so it is with science. But for an introduction to human evolution, I very much enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction into Human Evolution
Review: If I were an expert on anthropology and human evolution I probably wouldn't be reading a book on it from the Science Masters Series. This is really something of a primer on human evolution for people like me (I'm a Sociology graduate student) that are interested in the topic but really have very little background in biology or anthropology. Admittedly, I did find some of his topics overly interesting because of their apparent relationship to topics addressed by Sociology. One of these was the notion of consciousness. He attributes the idea of the Inner Eye/Inner 'I' to Humphrey, 1986. Perhaps Humphrey pulled a fast one on anthropologists because his interpretation is a rehash of George Herbert Mead's Symbolic Interactionism and his conceptions of consciousness and the 'I' and the 'Me'.

Aside from that criticism, I found the book to be a very enjoyable read. I have something of a background in biology (no expert by any stretch), but with what little background I do have the concepts discussed were not over my head. For individuals that have a good high school and perhaps college education, this book shouldn't be too difficult to digest and should be rather informative. I think I was most intrigued by the discussion of the human mind and consciousness, but the entire book was interesting (in a positive way) to me and I would highly recommend it.

There was one quote from Richard Dawkins in the book that I found particularly insightful (whether true or not, I don't claim to know), "Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself." (p. 142).

And another quote which isn't so much the quote but the content, "Skilled players of the game-those equipped with a more acute mental model, a sharper consciousness-would have enjoyed greater social and reproductive success. This is grist for natural selection, which would have raised consciousness to higher and higher levels. This gradually unfolding consciousness changed us into a new kind of animal. It transformed us into an animal who sets arbitrary standards of behavior based on what is considered to be right and wrong." (p. 154).

Overall, there are undoubtedly other books out there with more up-to-date information. The presentation of the material in this book also reveals that with every passing year the information in the book will become more and more outdated - so it is with science. But for an introduction to human evolution, I very much enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: A good, easy to read intro
Review: This book focuses more on how the fossil and cultural (i.e., tool-making) evidence for early human ancestors illuminates various aspects of human nature and what it truly means to be human, rather than on the technical details and comparative anatomy of the different pre-homonid and homonid evolutionary lines. Leakey does spend some time discussing the fossils and anatomy, though, which would be almost impossible to avoid in a book on physical anthropology, of course, but it's not the main emphasis of the book. He's mainly interested in showing how the fossil record illuminates the important physical and cultural changes that occurred during our long evolution, and what that says about how early humans lived.

For example, Leakey discusses how the anatomical changes from early Australopithecus (Lucy) to Homo erectus suggest profound differences in the physiology and life style of our earliest ancestors versus the first and later homonids. During this evolutionary transition, all the following changes occurred: the prolonged, more helpless infancy of humans; our ability to be more active and athletic, more delayed sexual maturity; the ability to make and use finer tools; the ability to hunt and kill larger game, along with a more omnivorous diet; a more complex and sophisticated social structure; and finally, the development of true language. Leakey includes separate chapters on 'The Art of Language," "The Language of Art," and "The Origins of Mind," in which he discusses the evidence for these higher-level and more advanced cognitive processes. Leakey is also careful to discuss investigations ranging from traditional comparative anatomy to high-tech approaches using DNA techniques, microanatomy (such as tooth lines), and CAT scans.

Another important topic he discusses is how the fossil evidence has forced modifications in the conception of our evolutionary tree. Since I was last reading up on the subject, the tree has become much less linear and far more "bushy." Another hallowed and traditional idea that had to be abandoned was Darwin's own theory of primitive man being "special" and highly evolved even from the very beginning. As the fossil record has demonstrated, our evolution was far more gradual, with many intermediate homonids known for both H. sapiens and Neanderthal, such as the Sima de los Huesos and Petrolonas finds, which show that there were primitive, archaic Neanderthals in Europe who eventually evolved into the more modern types such as those found at Steinheim and Arago. For the pre-Homonids we now have Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A. aethiopicus, A. robustus, and Australopithecus boiseii, as well as possibly two or different kinds of H. habilis, and so on. As I mentioned earlier, this has provided powerful support for a "bushier" family tree for human origins.

I only have one complaint, which is that the book, being now almost 10 years old, doesn't include the more recent finds of Ardipithecus ramidus and Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which together push our origins back several million years further even than "Lucy," at 3.6 million years, or Australopithicus afarensis.

Overall, however, a nice little introduction to the subject and the issues relating to our earliest origins, and I would give it four and a half stars if I could. After this book, you should have the background to tackle more technical books on the subject. If you decide to do this, I would recommend reading Richard Klein's book, The Dawn of Human Culture, next. It was published this year (2002), and discusses all the more recent finds in some detail. Klein's book is also probably the most readable and well-written account on the subject I've ever read, despite it's being at a fairly good technical level.

After you've finished with Klein's book, I would read Ian Tattarsal's Extinct Humans next, which is notable for the beautiful, high-gloss, color photographs of all the skulls, which is a great feature for comparing the descriptions of the comparative anatomy in the text to the actual specimens. It's also very well written, like Klein's book. In fact, the entire book is printed on very nice, high-gloss paper. The only downside is that this makes the book somewhat pricey compared to the other books here.

I have one more recommendation, which is that you could follow Klein's book with Neanderthal, by Paul Jordan. It's the only book I've seen covering the one genus, although Jordan includes chapters discussing the earlier and later homonids, too, but the emphasis is definitely on all the Neanderthal finds and their significance. It makes for more technical and somewhat dry reading, but does cover the subject in a more detailed way than any of the other books I've seen.

After reading these four books, you'll have covered the best current writing out there on the subject, along with all the major fossil finds. As I said, the only one missing from these books is the M. Brunet expedition's discovery of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, and you could just look up some online articles about it to get the scoop on that. Also, Time magazine had a major article on it in the July 22, 2002 issue, so you could try looking up that, too, at which point, you'd have covered everything.

Hope my little comparson review of these books helps. Good luck and happy reading!

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction to Human Evolution
Review: This is a good introduction to our distant past and ancestors for beginners in the subject. Leakey writes very well and explains things quite concisely. He gives an overview of the major theories, but due to the shortness of the book (only 171 pages including index) he only fleshes out his own theories. I am not an expert in anthropology so I don't know if he is grasping at straws or not. He gives a pretty good bibliography in the back for further reading. There are some problems with the book. First, it is very short, so the author does not have time to really delve into the different theories as much as you may wish he would. Second, this book was written almost ten years ago. There has been more discoveries since then, including the 6 million year old hominid fossils in Chad, which I wish he addressed in an epilogue or an updated version of the book. I would recommend this if you have no background in anthropology and then do some extra research on the web to get up to date with new findings.