Reddit reviews The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

There is an argument using evolutionary theory that agriculture was only adopted to increase group fitness at the cost of indivual fitness.

Lots of civilisation diseases started with the adoption of agriculture.

So there is the argument that agriculture made civilisation possible but at the cost of pure indivual strength and physical prowess.

There is lots of evidence that early agricultural societies had less than healthy members compared to hunter gatherers.

When you think about it, the indivual skills of a warrior in a large army is less important than pure numbers, most armies in the past were farmers called to war once a year, and yet the prevailed most of the time against nomad societies whos way of life made them formidable indivual warriors like the steppe people, just by numbers alone.

Edit:

If someone is interested where these theories come from, I recommend these books:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0996139516


https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691178437/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=joseph+henrich&qid=1558984106&s=gateway&sprefix=joseph+henr&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=not+by+genes+alone&qid=1558984151&s=gateway&sprefix=Not+by+ge&sr=8-1

That's literally the point. Rats are clearly more highly-evolved than us, as we have had to turn to natural phenomena (birds, tea leaves, bones, etc.) to get that same benefit.

> If a hunter shows any bias to return to previous spots, where he or others have seen caribou, then the caribou can benefit (survive better) by avoiding those locations (where they have previously seen humans). Thus, the best hunting strategy requires randomizing...Traditionally, Naskapi hunters decided where to go to hunt using divination and believed that the shoulder bones of caribou could point the way to success. The cracking patterns were (probably) essentially random...Thus, these divination rituals may have provided a crude randomizing device that helped hunters avoid their own decision-making biases.

and

>In Indonesia, the Kantus of Kalimantan use bird augury to select locations for their agricultural plots. Geographer Michael Dove argues that two factors will cause farmers to make plot placements that are too risky. First, Kantu ecological models contain the Gambler’s Fallacy, and lead them to expect floods to be less likely to occur in a specific location after a big flood in that location (which is not true). Second…Kantus pay attention to others’ success and copy the choices of successful households, meaning that if one of their neighbors has a good yield in an area one year, many other people will want to plant there in the next year. To reduce the risks posed by these cognitive and decision-making biases, Kantu rely on a system of bird augury that effectively randomizes their choices for locating garden plots, which helps them avoid catastrophic crop failures.

and

>I’m reminded of the Romans using augury to decide when and where to attack. This always struck me as crazy; generals are going to risk the lives of thousands of soldiers because they saw a weird bird earlier that morning? But war is a classic example of when a random strategy can be useful. If you’re deciding whether to attack the enemy’s right vs. left flank, it’s important that the enemy can’t predict your decision and send his best defenders there. If you’re generally predictable – and Scott Aaronson says you are – then outsourcing your decision to weird birds might be the best way to go.

All from here, reviewing this book

On abiogenesis and how mitochondria evolved, read The Vital Question by Nick Lane. Presents a very good account of the genetic evidence for endosymbiosis (how bacteria could integrate into an existing cell) and how life could have initially evolved via a “metabolism first” mechanism in cool undersea vents.

We don’t really see it as weird, but all metabolism involves exploiting an ion gradient. Mitochondria generate a proton gradient and then use that to power the phosphorylation of ATP - which is a weirdly roundabout way of doing things. Why is it like that? The theory Lane puts forward is that originally, the ion gradients used for metabolism were naturally occurring ones that arose between thin-walled fissures in mineral (olividine) vents. That’s how life started, and then RNA and DNA came later.

On human empathy, it’s obviously a huge advantage in evolutionary terms, since cooperating in tribes, villages, nations is what allowed us to outcompete other apes and hominids.

Why would you help a random stranger? Well, throughout most of human history, if you found someone hurt in a ditch, they’d be part of your community or a nearby one, so your first instinct is to help. Of course, if you saw that they had some kind of outgroup marker, you might be less inclined to cooperate.

Human intelligence is cultural - a single human on their own isn’t smart enough to figure out how to survive, we can only do so because of the accumulated cultural knowledge that enables you to know what plants are good to eat, how to hunt, and so on. Other animals have some cultural knowledge, but transmitting culture, not raw intelligence, is the main advantage humans have over other species. In some tests of pattern matching, chimps outperform people, just like autistic savants can have amazing cognitive powers, but because they lack the ability to tap into cultural intelligence, they still can’t function in society. See The Secret of Our Success by Henrich.

You want studies or a book?

One of the most profound books i have ever read is this on how states rise and fall. It's the most enlighting thing I have ever read, it changed how I view the world fundamentaly

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0452288193/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0452288193

Its a popular book without the mathematical models behind it

Here is the mathematical version

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691116695/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691116695

But its quite expensive and only available as hardcover but there should be a different version coming out soon


For the study on cooperation this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0996139516/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513099&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Peter+turchin&dpPl=1&dpID=41Ux9xQvfIL&ref=plSrch


On cultural evolution this books makes an incredible strong argument

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691178437/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_0691178437


On how religion influences pro social behaviour this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0691169748/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517513482&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Ara+Norenzayan&dpPl=1&dpID=61TgLU80vIL&ref=plSrch