Description
What do we think about when we think about human evolution? With his characteristic wit and wisdom, anthropologist Jonathan Marks explores our scientific narrative of human origins-the study of evolution-and examines its cultural elements and theoretical foundations. In the process, he situates human evolution within a general anthropological framework and presents it as a special case of kinship and mythology. Tales of the Ex-Apes argues that human evolution has incorporated the emergence of social relations and cultural histories that are unprecedented in the apes and thus cannot be reduced to purely biological properties and processes. Marks shows that human evolution has involved the transformation from biological to biocultural evolution. Over tens of thousands of years, new social roles-notably spouse, father, in-laws, and grandparents-have co-evolved with new technologies and symbolic meanings to produce the human species, in the absence of significant biological evolution. We are biocultural creatures, Marks argues, fully comprehensible by recourse to neither our real ape ancestry nor our imaginary cultureless biology.
About the Author
Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the author of What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee and Why I Am Not a Scientist, both from UC Press.
Reviews
"Marks's book is a wise and witty analysis of how science and culture are inextricably intertwined as we compose and narrate the science of who we are and where we came from, and it permits us to make just a bit more sense of the science." -- Candida Moss The Daily Beast "Great book ... very much worth the read." -- Greg Laden Greg Laden's Blog "A well-written text ... Recommended." CHOICE connect "This was the kind of subject that excited greats like Paul Ricoeur, Martin Buber, and Hans Jonas. But unlike the occasionally tortured prose of these admittedly brilliant thinkers, Marks' books are to the point, funny even... The reading is easy; even the most difficult subjects in molecular biology and philosophy are handled with wit and the minimum of jargon." Science & Education
Book Information
ISBN 9780520285828
Author Jonathan Marks
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 15mm
About the Author
Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the author of What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee and Why I Am Not a Scientist, both from UC Press.
Reviews
"Marks's book is a wise and witty analysis of how science and culture are inextricably intertwined as we compose and narrate the science of who we are and where we came from, and it permits us to make just a bit more sense of the science." -- Candida Moss The Daily Beast "Great book ... very much worth the read." -- Greg Laden Greg Laden's Blog "A well-written text ... Recommended." CHOICE connect "This was the kind of subject that excited greats like Paul Ricoeur, Martin Buber, and Hans Jonas. But unlike the occasionally tortured prose of these admittedly brilliant thinkers, Marks' books are to the point, funny even... The reading is easy; even the most difficult subjects in molecular biology and philosophy are handled with wit and the minimum of jargon." Science & Education
Book Information
ISBN 9780520285828
Author Jonathan Marks
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 15mm
