
Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science
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Narrated by:
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The Great Courses
About this listen
Understanding our humanity - the essence of who we are - is one of the deepest mysteries and biggest challenges in modern science. Why do we have bad moods? Why are we capable of having such strange dreams? How can metaphors in our language hold such sway on our actions?
As we learn more about the mechanisms of human behavior through evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and other related fields, we're discovering just how intriguing the human species is. And while scientists are continually uncovering similarities between our behavior and that of other animals, they're also finding insights into everything that makes us unique from any other species.
Join an acclaimed neurobiologist, award-winning teacher, and MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" recipient in a series of 12 invigorating lectures that offer a surprising and undeniably fascinating study of what makes you you, journeying to the front lines of scientific research to gain a new perspective on the quirky nature of being ourselves. Professor Sapolsky explores our humanity by investigating mysterious and sometimes even mundane aspects of human behavior, including bad moods, nostalgia, and dreams, packing the lectures with stories of bold experiments and case studies that illuminate the intricacies of our behavior.
Thought-provoking, witty, and sometimes myth-shattering, this course is sure to have you thinking about and appreciating your life in novel ways.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
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No skill is more important in today's world than being able to think about, understand, and act on information in an effective and responsible way. What's more, at no point in human history have we had access to so much information, with such relative ease, as we do in the 21st century. But because misinformation out there has increased as well, critical thinking is more important than ever. These 24 rewarding lectures equip you with the knowledge and techniques you need to become a savvier, sharper critical thinker in your professional and personal life.
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Same Material Different Title
- By rkeinc on 09-21-14
By: Steven Novella, and others
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The Epigenetics Revolution
- How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance
- By: Nessa Carey
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Epigenetics can potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the 20-year history of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of epigenetics.
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Begins Accessible, Then Becomes Too Technical
- By wbiro on 07-26-17
By: Nessa Carey
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Introduction to Cognitive Science
- By: Thad A. Polk, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Thad A. Polk
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
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For millennia, philosophers and scientists have been trying to unlock the secrets of the mind with only limited success—until now. Today, with modern technologies including the best in neuroscience, medical imaging, and recent advances in artificial intelligence, we are making more progress than ever before. In Introduction to Cognitive Science, Professor Thad A. Polk takes you on a fascinating tour of the latest discoveries in the relatively new field of cognitive science. In 24 exciting lectures, Professor Polk shares dozens of the most challenging questions in cognitive science today.
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AI is over rated
- By hilda shurbaji on 01-19-25
By: Thad A. Polk, and others
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Food: A Cultural Culinary History
- By: Ken Albala, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Ken Albala
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
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Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."
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One of my top 3 favorite courses!
- By Jessica on 12-28-13
By: Ken Albala, and others
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Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature
- By: Professor Daniel Breyer, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Professor Daniel Breyer
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Original Recording
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Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear about someone committing a violent, reprehensible, even evil, act. And each time it happens, before we know anything about the circumstances, we are already sure of one thing: We are nothing like that perpetrator. But how can we be so sure? After all, we are all human. In Understanding the Dark Side of Human Nature, Professor Daniel Breyer takes us on a fascinating philosophical journey into many of the deepest and darkest questions that have engaged humanity for millennia.
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A Great Cross-Cultural Conversation
- By Anonymous User on 09-09-19
By: Professor Daniel Breyer, and others
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The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions
- By: Robert C. Solomon, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert C. Solomon
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
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Conventional wisdom suggests there is a sharp distinction between emotion and reason. Emotions are seen as inferior, disruptive, primitive, and even bestial forces. These 24 remarkable lectures suggest otherwise-that emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world.
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Feel good and be good
- By Gary on 11-24-18
By: Robert C. Solomon, and others
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Determined
- A Science of Life Without Free Will
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do.
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Abridged - no Appendix!
- By Amazon Customer on 11-02-23
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The American Civil War
- By: Gary W. Gallagher, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gary W. Gallagher
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
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Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.
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Excellent Series
- By Rodney on 07-09-13
By: Gary W. Gallagher, and others
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The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality
- By: Don Lincoln, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Don Lincoln
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
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At the end of his career, Albert Einstein was pursuing a dream far more ambitious than the theory of relativity. He was trying to find an equation that explained all physical reality - a theory of everything. Experimental physicist and award-winning educator Dr. Don Lincoln takes you on this exciting journey in The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality. Suitable for the intellectually curious at all levels and assuming no background beyond basic high-school math, these 24 half-hour lectures cover recent developments at the forefront of particle physics and cosmology.
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Audible’s Best Science Offering, A Gem
- By MikeB on 12-08-18
By: Don Lincoln, and others
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The Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition
- By: Daniel N. Robinson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Daniel N. Robinson
- Length: 30 hrs and 11 mins
- Original Recording
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Grasp the important ideas that have served as the backbone of philosophy across the ages with this extraordinary 60-lecture series. This is your opportunity to explore the enormous range of philosophical perspectives and ponder the most important and enduring of human questions-without spending your life poring over dense philosophical texts.
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A Hard Review to Write
- By Ark1836 on 11-20-15
By: Daniel N. Robinson, and others
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Synthetic Biology: Life’s Extraordinary New Worlds
- By: Milton Muldrow Jr., The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Milton Muldrow Jr.
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
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Synthetic Biology: Life’s Extraordinary New Worlds is an introduction to synthetic biology for non-scientists, covering the exciting field that is transforming health care, agriculture, environmental science, and many other areas. Using the molecules of life to answer scientific questions and manipulate life for human benefit, synthetic biology encompasses a wide range of applications—from gene editing and metabolic engineering to food synthesis and green technologies.
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Disappointing.
- By Kindle Customer FB on 12-10-24
By: Milton Muldrow Jr., and others
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Understanding the Brain
- By: Jeanette Norden, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jeanette Norden
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
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Considering everything the brain does, how can it possibly be the source of our personalities, dreams, thoughts, sensations, utterances, and movements? Understanding the Brain, a 36-lecture course by award-winning Professor Jeanette Norden of Vanderbilt University, takes you inside this astonishingly complex organ and shows you how it works. With its combination of neurology, biology, and psychology, this course helps you understand how we perceive the world through our senses, how we move, how we learn and remember, and how emotions affect our thoughts and actions.
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This is essentially a scam
- By George H. on 05-23-19
By: Jeanette Norden, and others
Yes to anything of Robert Sapolsky's
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An entertaining sampling from Sapolsky
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Enjoyable science!
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deRek
Perfection
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Loved it.
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Informative and hilarious
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funny and informative
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Fascinating
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Fascinatin!
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So good!!!
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