The Ape that Understood the Universe
How the Mind and Culture Evolve

Uses evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory to explain the mysteries of the human mind to an alien scientist.

Steve Stewart-Williams (Author), Michael Shermer (Foreword by)

9781108732758, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 November 2019

386 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 2 cm, 0.57 kg

'Simply put, The Ape That Understood the Universe is a thorough, readable, and indispensable guide to the human species and how it operates.' Robert Verbruggen, The American Conservative

The Ape that Understood the Universe is the story of the strangest animal in the world: the human animal. It opens with a question: How would an alien scientist view our species? What would it make of our sex differences, our sexual behavior, our altruistic tendencies, and our culture? The book tackles these issues by drawing on two major schools of thought: evolutionary psychology and cultural evolutionary theory. The guiding assumption is that humans are animals, and that like all animals, we evolved to pass on our genes. At some point, however, we also evolved the capacity for culture - and from that moment, culture began evolving in its own right. This transformed us from a mere ape into an ape capable of reshaping the planet, travelling to other worlds, and understanding the vast universe of which we're but a tiny, fleeting fragment. Featuring a new foreword by Michael Shermer.

1. The alien's challenge
2. Darwin comes to mind
3. The SeXX/XY animal
4. The dating, mating, baby-making animal
5. The altruistic animal
6. The cultural animal
Appendix A: how to win an argument with a blank slater
Appendix B: how to win an argument with an anti-memeticist.

Subject Areas: Popular psychology [VSP], Evolution [PSAJ], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Psychology: emotions [JMQ], Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology [JMM], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology of gender [JMG], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Humanistic psychology [JMAN], Sociology: sexual relations [JHBK5]