The Human Instinct

From the publisher: "A radical, optimistic exploration of how humans evolved to develop reason, consciousness, and free will.

Lately, the most passionate advocates of the theory of evolution seem to present it as bad news. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation. We are just one species among multitudes, and therefore no more significant than any other living creature.

Now comes Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller to make the case that this view betrays a gross misunderstanding of evolution. Natural selection surely explains how our bodies and brains were shaped, but Miller argues that it’s not a social or cultural theory of everything. In The Human Instinct, he rejects the idea that our biological heritage means that human thought, action, and imagination are pre-determined, describing instead the trajectory that ultimately gave us reason, consciousness, and free will. A proper understanding of evolution, he says, reveals humankind in its glorious uniqueness—one foot planted firmly among all of the creatures we’ve evolved alongside, and the other in the special place of self-awareness and understanding that we alone occupy in the universe.

Equal parts natural science and philosophy, The Human Instinct is a moving and powerful celebration of what it means to be human."

I wished I had made notes while reading this book.  The book is well written in that it was a pleasant read.  I enjoyed it.  The book is not well written in that the writer makes numerous philosophical errors and uses logical fallacies.  He both rejects the "ghost in the machine" and defends the "ghost in the machine" by claiming the complexity of the neurological complexity of the brain creates the mind.  The human is either completely controlled by only chemical and physical processes (not allowing "free will"), or one must allow for the "ghost in the machine some way.  One can not both claim there is no "ghost" and free will.  The two arguments are mutually exclusive.

Given very recent publication, the text needs updating before publication.  Homo sapien jaw bone has been discovered in Israel predating other fossils outside of Africa.  Since the author writes extensively about this in a portion of the text; updating this section is important.