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Natural History Of Ourselves (2000)

by Hannah Holmes(Favorite Author)
3.74 of 5 Votes: 3
ISBN
184887040X (ISBN13: 9781848870406)
languge
English
review 1: This breezy though well-written look at humans through the lens of a naturalist was a lot of fun. It's not often that one has the opportunity to read about one's own species as another interesting animal. Like Holmes, I find humanity's evils a little easier to forgive when they are viewed in context of our animal heritage, and our altruism more noble. A solid, engaging, occasionally funny book. Recommended.
review 2: Innovative, funny, and fascinating. I guarantee you’ve never read anything like this. She explains the human body, physically and emotionally, in a creative and fun way, using the latest research. (I didn’t like her first book, Suburban Safari, nearly as much.) A few examples:P. 79 Where once humans were divided into just two camps–stoics and
... more whiners–a Michigan neuroscientist now grants us three: val-vals, met-mets, and val-mets. Each category represents a different combination of a mother and father’s COMT gene. This gene comes in two varieties: good painkiller and not-so-good painkiller. One quarter of humans are val-vals, who got the painkiller version from each parent. Half are val-mets, with moderate pain control. And the final quarter are met-mets, with two lousy versions of the gene, which essentially allows pain to runroughshod through their brains. So if you whimper over splinters, you’re not a sissy, you’ve just been cheated by the Gene Fairy.P. 81 Some researchers speculate that the space-savvy male brain evolved because all the hunters with bad spatial skills got lost and died childless. less
Reviews (see all)
colesmommy
Interesting. I must admit that I skimmed some of the later sections though.
jeromejmo
Heard the author being interviewed on NPR....sounded VERY interesting
Damian
An amusing and interesting analysis of homo sapiens as animals.
Taylorcmerek
so far i am finding this book very interesting.
jdreher777
Witty and amusing, like all of her books.
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