A Different Kind of Animal

Based on the Tanner Lectures given in Princeton, this wide-ranging book argues that cultural evolution and adaptation are the primary factors responsible for human dominance rather than our cognitive ability. We demonstrate the capacity to cooperate on a large scale, but this requires the establishment of norms and ultimately sanctions to motivate and keep people in line; on a smaller scale, co-operation can be driven by mutuality and reciprocity. It is the accumulated cultural learning and evolution that is critical, which the author shows through a number of anthropological examples. Cooperation is also required for the production of public goods, not to mention warfare. Four commentators from different disciplines give their views, to which Boyd replies in a final response. One line of criticism is that we are equally competitive and manipulative, while another questioned the balance of individual and social. An interesting observation towards the end is that undergraduates taking classes in economics, anthropology and psychology are told different and incompatible things about human behaviour in society. This can lead to what Boyd calls a Balkanisation into three camps: human behavioural ecologists, evolutionary psychologists and cultural evolution researchers in their own exclusive silos, when students need them to communicate and debate the value and relevance of their respective positions.