Dear Tipsters:
I would like to bring to your attention the book listed below, shortly to be published. It puts forward a detailed, major theory of just why human beings have evolved in such a unique pattern.
It draws on the Hardy/Morgan Aquatic Ape hypothesis (now recast as a shore-based scenario), extensively supplemented with Dr Cunnane's own important work in brain nutrition, and successfully integrates a wealth of empirical data from anthropology, physiology, nutrition, psychology, zoology, and human development. A whole range of previously disparate observations fall into a coherent pattern in this analysis.
I believe that any psychologist would find this an interesting and important work of scholarship, particularly if they are in the areas of evolutionary psychology, animal behaviour, health, or child development.
Disclaimer: Dr Cunnane is a graduate of Bishop's U and an acquaintance.
Leo Standing
==============================================
SURVIVAL OF THE FATTEST
The Key to Human Brain Evolution
by Stephen Cunnane
(Canada Research Chair in Brain Metabolism,
Research Center on
Aging, Universit� de Sherbrooke, Qu�bec,
Canada)
Pub. Date: Scheduled Summer
2005, World Scientific, Singapore
Pages: 500pp (approx.)
ISBN: 981-256-191-9
(Hardcover) / 981-256-318-0(pbk) (Softcover)
URL: http://www.worldscibooks.com/lifesci/5769.html
How did humans evolve larger and more sophisticated brains?
In general, evolution depends on a special combination of circumstances: part genetics, part time, and part environment. In the case of human brain evolution, the main environmental influence was adaptation to a 'shore-based' diet, which provided the world's richest source of nutrition, as well as a sedentary lifestyle that promoted fat deposition. Such a diet included shellfish, fish, marsh plants, frogs, bird's eggs, etc. Humans and, and more importantly, hominid babies started to get fat, a crucial distinction that led to the development of larger brains and to the evolution of modern humans. A larger brain is expensive to maintain and this increasing demand for energy results in, succinctly, survival of the fattest.
Contents
- Human Evolution: An Overview
- Uniqueness of the Human Brain
- Fetal Fat - The Other Unique Human Attribute
- The Basics - Operating a Big Brain
- Insurance
- How Did We Get Fat Babies?
- Darwin - Evolution as Opportunity
- Survival Isn’t Good Enough
- The Shore-Based Scenario
- Where’s the Evidence?
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