The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Product Description
Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing links to recent discoveries.
"A history of the human brain from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday...It's a delight."
THE NEW YORK TIMES

blew my mind...
wow. I would highly suggest this book to anyone who wants a holistic perspective on our brains. Sagan's view points are amazing and they are a pleasure to read.

An Oldie but Goodie...
Carl Sagan died in 1996, a loss to us all. But his resonances linger.

He might not agree with me on that -- because after all he was a hard-nosed scientist -- but one of his resonances intersected my thoughts the other day and wouldn't leave me alone. I reflexively Googled the list of usual suspects and homed in on his 1977 The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence.

Google. It's fascinating how the mind works these days in concert with the internet's near-instantaneous, finger-tip access to information. What's more fascinating is that the internet wasn't around -- at least in its public form -- thirty-some years ago when Sagan wrote this book.

Sometimes -- as Santyana observed -- it's useful to look at the past. Sometimes, it's just fun.

First, the context of the past... When this book was published in 1977, I was an environmental engineer, working for a nuclear utility, seven years out of Vietnam and six years out of graduate school. Sagan was a renowned scientist at the time, a well-known leading-edge thinker and popularizer of science. I admired not only his ability to distill science to a level understandable to the layperson, but also his stern advocacy of scientific method and skeptical inquiry. So I bought the book, read it, enjoyed it.

Then I put the book in the attic.

Fast-forward to the present... The resonance had to do with computer games. I was watching my grandson play one. Sagan had talked about games, I remembered, in the context of their potential for human development. I had an attic-cleanout going on at the time and -- lo and behold -- suddenly there's the book in my hand. Another resonance, maybe. Faded red cover, yellowed pages, a paperback. I found what I was looking for pretty quickly: toward the end of the book Sagan observes that Pong and Space War "suggest a gradual elaboration of computer graphics so that we gain an experiential and intuitive understanding of the laws of physics". I went back to watch my grandson play -- on a high-def screen, with enormous processing power in a tiny chip, mind you -- and reflected that "elaboration" of the graphics over thirty years hasn't been exactly "gradual". Not sure what game my grandson was playing, or what if any potential he was developing, but one thing was clear: the kid had a fine intuitive appreciation of physics. I didn't play; he would've wiped me out in thirty seconds.

Another resonance as I thumbed through this old book: Sagan talks about "extrasomatic" (i.e., outside the body) extensions of the human brain. He has an interesting chart that plots the number of bits of information that can be stored in the brains of various organisms. Mammals, and modern humans in particular, have the greatest capacity. But if you were to include the bits of information available to humans outside their brains -- in libraries and similar cultural sources -- Sagan points out that human capacity would be completely off his chart. Which brings us back to Google (or other search engines or computer databases or even the digital world in general)... think about it: something you were trying to recall, or maybe figure out, is now just a mouse-click away. And that capability is accelerating. Is that edifying? Enlightening? Enabling? Frightening? Or all of these?

But computer gaming and extrasomatic brain extensions are really just little off-hand slices of this still-topical book. Sagan talks both broadly and deeply about the many fascinating aspects of the evolution of human intelligence. He speaks of the development of the physical brain; for example the early neocortex and its adaptation to increase survival skills. But he also covers more subtle non-physical influences on evolving intelligence, for example cultural feedback paths such as introspection. I was particularly struck by his observation that "the richest, most intricate and most profound of these [introspections] were called myths". He goes on to agree with the Roman historian Salustius' definition of myths as "things which never happened but always are". Now that's clearly another resonance, because as a writer (with my daughter) of metaphysical sci-fi, we're always trying to tap into fundamental myths and recast them in the trappings of modern science and technology.

So, I really enjoyed looking back, re-reading this book, comparing it to the present. I was struck again by the approachability of the man's writing, the depth of his knowledge, his humanity. Some fascinating speculations here, by a masterful communicator. Thank you, Dr. Sagan.

~Denning
(aka Lee Denning, author of Monkey Trap and Hiding Hand)
Hiding Hand

A must read book
Along with the Demon Haunted World, also by Carl Sagan, it tells a story that we all need to know and understand. Take the time to read both.

One fo the best, and most important books ever written
I first read this book decades ago when I was teaching Psychology, and I am still recommending it today. It is, in my option, one of the best books ever written, bar none. If someone were to come to me and say they can't afford the time or cost of going to college or grad school, but want to get to the marrow without gnawing on the bone, this is one of the first books I would recommend. It is readable, entertaining, and accessible even for someone who doesn't have a background in the field, and is written at the level of the intelligent layman. While there are a few minor things I would quibble with, the book has held up well in being able to paint the Big Picture, and the rich tapestry of this work is a work of art that will be respected for generations. It will make sense of so many things that the reader will be wildly entertained, and end up with surprisingly sophisticated (and painless) understanding of evolutionary neurophysiology. It will help anyone who wants to better understand how any creature with a brain functions, and how different evolutionary conditions produced the hardware, how it evolved over time, and the principles that will affect the future evolution of all species. This book has my very highest recommendation.

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