The Human Advantage
A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable
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Narrated by:
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Dina Pearlman
About this listen
Humans are awesome. Our brains are gigantic, seven times larger than they should be for the size of our bodies. The human brain uses 25 percent of all the energy the body requires each day. And it became enormous in a very short amount of time in evolution, allowing us to leave our cousins, the great apes, behind.
So the human brain is special, right? Wrong, according to Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Humans have developed cognitive abilities that outstrip those of all other animals but not because we are evolutionary outliers. The human brain was not singled out to become amazing in its own exclusive way, and it never stopped being a primate brain. If we are not an exception to the rules of evolution, then what is the source of the human advantage?
Herculano-Houzel shows that it is not the size of our brain that matters but the fact that we have more neurons in the cerebral cortex than any other animal, thanks to our ancestors' invention, some 1.5 million years ago, of a more efficient way to obtain calories: cooking. Because we are primates, ingesting more calories in less time made possible the rapid acquisition of a huge number of neurons in the still fairly small cerebral cortex - the part of the brain responsible for finding patterns, reasoning, developing technology, and passing it on through culture. Herculano-Houzel shows us how she came to these conclusions - making "brain soup" to determine the number of neurons in the brain, for example, and bringing animal brains in a suitcase through customs. The Human Advantage is an engaging and original look at how we became remarkable without ever being special.
Download the accompanying reference guide.©2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2016 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Performance
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A Pocket History of Human Evolution brings us up-to-date on the exploits of all our ancient relatives. Paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and science journalist François Savatier consider what accelerated our evolution: Was it tools, our "large" brains, language, empathy, or something else entirely? And why are we the sole survivors among many early bipedal humans? Their conclusions reveal the various ways ancient humans live on today - from gossip as modern "grooming" to our gendered division of labor - and what the future might hold for our strange and unique species.
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Well presented and very informative.
- By Jim Griggs on 11-11-21
By: Silvana Condemi, and others
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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A Series of Fortunate Events
- Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You
- By: Sean B. Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean B. Carroll
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason, or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.
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We are for a short time.
- By Anonymous User on 10-14-20
By: Sean B. Carroll
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How to Clone a Mammoth
- The Science of De-Extinction
- By: Beth Shapiro
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Could extinct species, like mammoths and passenger pigeons, be brought back to life? The science says yes. In How to Clone a Mammoth, Beth Shapiro, evolutionary biologist and pioneer in "ancient DNA" research, walks listeners through the astonishing and controversial process of de-extinction.
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Very Readable Take on a Complex Subject
- By John on 04-26-15
By: Beth Shapiro
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How to Build a Dinosaur
- Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever
- By: Jack Horner, James Gorman
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In movies, in novels, in comic strips, and on television, we've all seen dinosaurs - or at least somebody's educated guess of what they would look like. But what if it were possible to build, or grow, a real dinosaur without finding ancient DNA? Jack Horner, the scientist who advised Steven Spielberg on the blockbuster film Jurassic Park and a pioneer in bringing paleontology into the 21st century, teams up with the editor of the New York Times's Science Times section to reveal exactly what's in store.
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Good book but misplaced title
- By Robert on 06-19-15
By: Jack Horner, and others
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Domesticated
- Evolution in a Man-Made World
- By: Richard C. Francis
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Without our domesticated plants and animals, human civilization as we know it would not exist. We would still be living at subsistence level as hunter-gatherers if not for domestication. It is no accident that the cradle of civilization - the Middle East - is where sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and cats commenced their fatefully intimate associations with humans.
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Well, what did you expect?
- By Mark on 03-25-16
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Genesis
- The Deep Origin of Societies
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Asserting that religious creeds and philosophical questions can be reduced to purely genetic and evolutionary components, and that the human body and mind have a physical base obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry, Genesis demonstrates that the only way for us to fully understand human behavior is to study the evolutionary histories of nonhuman species. Of these, Wilson demonstrates that at least 17 - among them the African naked mole rat and the sponge-dwelling shrimp - have been found to have advanced societies based on altruism and cooperation.
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Simply awful
- By Mike A Klotz on 02-07-20
By: Edward O. Wilson
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Human Errors
- A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
- By: Nathan H. Lents
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often - 200 times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last.
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From Pointless Bones to Broken Genes to...Aliens?
- By Katy.LED on 12-04-18
By: Nathan H. Lents
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Welcome to the Microbiome
- Getting to Know the Trillions of Bacteria and Other Microbes In, On, and Around You
- By: Rob DeSalle, Susan L. Perkins
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Suddenly, research findings require a paradigm shift in our view of the microbial world. The Human Microbiome Project at the National Institutes of Health is well under way, and unprecedented scientific technology now allows the censusing of trillions of microbes inside and on our bodies as well as in the places where we live, work, and play. This intriguing, up-to-the-minute book for scientists and nonscientists alike explains what researchers are discovering about the microbe world and what the implications are for modern science and medicine.
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I learned so much from this book. I am happy.
- By Jonathan Miller on 09-08-18
By: Rob DeSalle, and others
What listeners say about The Human Advantage
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Frantic Gonzalez
- 05-08-17
we are primates
we are all primates and our brains are not special, yet it is the technological changes that have made us remarkable. wow. love Herculano.
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- Alex
- 09-30-24
Great content, Production okay
The story of our brains is great to hear. This is a very technical book, and it has many graphs. Luckily there’s an Accompanying PDF. Unfortunately, the narration never says WHEN to view these while listening!
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- Susie
- 07-07-16
Take That Raw Foods!
Anyone who has watched Suzana Herculano-Houzel's TED talk knows she is a charming communicator with a sharp mind. In this book she gives an accounting of how she answered the question, "What is so special about us?" The conclusion— our big calorie-greedy brains couldn't be possible without the invention of cooking— wasn't a given.
This is one of those popular science books that made feel that I was along for the ride solving one of humanity's great questions. There is plenty of scientific history and breakdowns given to help the listener understand the different studies that went into her conclusions.
Dina Pearlman is the perfect narrator, clear, and landing the jokes like she wrote them.
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6 people found this helpful
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- David
- 11-03-16
Highly recommended.
I found this book fascinating in all sorts of ways but it needs an executive summary. Read the following and ask yourself what the author was thinking.
"The math here is straight forward because by deffiniton there are six point zero two times ten to the twenty third Avogadro's number of molecules in one mole of any substance and because five point four four times nine to the negative nine micro moles equals five point four four times ten to the negative fifteen moles of glucose. ..."
It can go on like this for PAGES. Just put up with this because you can train youself to go intermitently catotonic and make sense out of it all. And very well worth it. Eventually I began to look forward to these epileptic fits as comic relief. In all seriousness I could not help but think this stuff verges on Nobel Prize territory.
I learned a lot of interesting things listening to this book. For instance, our brains are simply scaled up versions of the typical primate brain. However, the other great apes (a small subset set of all primates) are aberrants. They have big bodies but relatively small brains which led to some unfortunate conclussions. Speciffically, that our brains are aberrantly to big. Actually their brains are aberrantly small. The book is full of these sorts of observations.
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1 person found this helpful