Human Origins and Evolution: Evidence and Explanation: Behavior, Bipedal Locomotion, the Hand, Robusticity, Throwing and Striking, Effects on the Brain, and Other Human Traits Explained By a New Theory

Richard W. Young

ISBN 10: 1494367157 / ISBN 13: 9781494367152

Edité par CreateSpace, 2014

A propos de cet article

2014 printing of 2013 edition. Bottom corner of title page has a circular blind-embossed former ownership stamp; bottom outer edge has some soil; tight, text clean. xvi, 383 p., illustrated [otob: 36].

N° de réf. du vendeur 206430

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Human Origins and Evolution: Evidence and Explanation: Behavior, Bipedal Locomotion, the Hand, Robusticity, Throwing and Striking, Effects on the Brain, and Other Human Traits Explained By a New Theory
• Éditeur: CreateSpace
• Date de parution: 2014
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1494367157
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781494367152
• Reliure: Trade Paperback
• État de l'article: Very Good

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

In this provocative book, Richard Young addresses some of the most compelling, unanswered questions about human origins and the subsequent five million years of human evolution. He presents a thorough, up-to-date, compilation of the relevant scientific evidence. However, evidence requires interpretation—an explanation that aids understanding by revealing how a large body of information can be made comprehensible in a simple manner. A novel way of thinking is supplied which serves that purpose. Previous explanations are compared with this new perspective, based on the central principle of modern Darwinism: natural selection. The key concept is that bipedal use of hand-held weapons by our ancient ancestors yielded enduring reproductive advantages which drove natural selection in a way that accounts for both human origins and major aspects of ensuing evolution that led to the emergence of Homo. The book provides a series of discussions about current issues in the study of human evolution, including human origins, bipedal locomotion, the human hand, early weapons, gender size differences, the transition from Australopithecus to Homo, the acquisition of meat, human handedness, diminution of the canine teeth, robusticity of bone and muscle, development and maturation of throwing and striking, and central nervous control of the bipedal use of weapons. Two related but unexplored topics are also considered: the structure of scientific explanations and the current absence of a theory of human origins and evolution. The author shows that his “bipedal use of hand-held weapons” proposal can be formulated as a theory and furnishes numerous predictions that can be used to test it. Richard W. Young, Ph.D., D. Sc. (hon), is Professor emeritus from the Department of Anatomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical School.

À propos de l?auteur

Richard W. Young is Professor emeritus from the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical School. After four years in the Marine Corps, he obtained a BA degree in biology from Antioch college (1956), where he was a research assistant at the Fels Research Institute. He next was a Predoctoral Fellow of the US Public Health Service at Columbia University, where he completed a Ph.D program in human anatomy (1959), followed by a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship spent at the University of Bari (Italy) and the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden). He subsequently received training in the use of radioisotopes at the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (1963) and in electron microscopic autoradiography at the Centre d’Études Nucléaires (Saclay, France, 1966-1967). In 1977 he was a Visiting Professor at Wolfson College, Cambridge University (England). Dr. Young joined the faculty of the Department of Anatomy, UCLA Medical School in 1960 as an Assistant Professor, attaining the rank of Professor in 1968. His primary teaching assignment was in microscopic anatomy, a course which he chaired for several years. Laboratory research, funded by the US Public Health Service and primarily based upon autoradiography, was applied to questions of cell biology in bones, teeth, the ocular lens, and particularly the visual cells of the retina, in which he discovered the continual renewal of the outer segments of the rods and cones. He received several awards recognizing his research, including an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Chicago in 1980. Dr. Young retired from his academic duties at UCLA in 1991, but continued to follow various aspects of science actively, becoming dedicated to the topic of human evolution in 1998. His motto is “Ancora imparo”