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    The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will
    The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will
    The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will

    Written by Kenneth R. Miller

    Narrated by Fred Sanders

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    From one of America’s best-known biologists, a revolutionary new way of thinking about evolution that shows “why, in light of our origins, humans are still special” (Edward J. Larson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evolution).

    Once we had a special place in the hierarchy of life on Earth—a place confirmed by the literature and traditions of every human tribe. But then the theory of evolution arrived to shake the tree of human understanding to its roots. To many of the most passionate advocates for Darwin’s theory, we are just one species among multitudes, no more significant than any other. Even our minds are not our own, they tell us, but living machines programmed for nothing but survival and reproduction.

    In The Human Instinct, Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller “confronts both lay and professional misconceptions about evolution” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), showing that while evolution explains how our bodies and brains were shaped, that heritage does not limit or predetermine human behavior. In fact, Miller argues in this “highly recommended” (Forbes) work that it is only thanks to evolution that we have the power to shape our destiny.

    Equal parts natural science and philosophy, The Human Instinct makes an “absorbing, lucid, and engaging…case that it was evolution that gave us our humanity” (Ursula Goodenough, professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 17, 2018
    ISBN9781508256717
    Author

    Kenneth R. Miller

    Kenneth R. Miller is professor of biology at Brown University and the critically acclaimed bestselling author of Only a Theory, Finding Darwin’s God, and The Human Instinct. He has appeared frequently on radio and television as a public advocate for evolution. In 2005 he was the lead expert witness for the victorious plaintiffs in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, where he testified in favor of evolution and against “intelligent design.” Among his honors are the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, and the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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    Reviews for The Human Instinct

    4.5/5

    54 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Very thought-provoking. The author poses multiple arguments for and against various theories and lines of thought.
    • 4/5
      This audiobook is very interesting, but has many complexities that make it hard to absorb in audiobook form.
      It definitely left me pondering over some of his thoughts.
      My only warning is that it requires background and base knowledge in biology, physics and psychology to fully understand certain sections and points (I personally had trouble in a few sections where physics were discussed, and can see how other sections would be similarly difficult to someone not familiar with the corresponding field).
    • 5/5
      Kenneth Miller writes well, and explores evolution, biology, philosophical arguments for free will, and neuroscience.  His book has many insights, but is hard to summarize.  He discusses first the contemporary biologists and philosophers like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould who seek to reduce all of human achievement to hard-wired evolution, opposed by Marilynne Robinson and others, who sense that "The Death of Adam" creates problems for morality. Miller scoots over a history of evolutionary thought, as far back as 1655, when philosopher Isaac de la Peyrere who, inspired by finding stone tools suggested people existed prior to Adam. The book was burned. The problem of free will comes up, with modern evolutionists denying that it can exist, since all behavior is so determined by forces and events we cannot sense. There is a technical argument about genes on chromosome 2 that prove a kinship with great apes, apart from the human paleontology. Miller discusses consciousness and how it might be represented in the brain, citing Stephan Dehaene's work on event related potentials, suggesting a "global ignition pattern" of synchronized firing in the brain underlies consciousness. Many philosophers are critical of this materialism, but Thomas Nagel concedes "So far as we can tell, our mental lives, including our subjective experiences, and those of other creatures, are strongly connected with and probably strictly dependent on physical events in our brains and on the physical interaction of our bodies with the rest of the physical world".How can free will emerge from responses in a system that is dependent on physical events, without violating cause and effect? Perhaps quantum entanglement from electrons in microtubules, producing changes in neuronal firing rates that are acted on by the rest of the brain to generate the undetermined choices that underly free will (Penrose and Hameroff). The other possibility is in the instantaneous changes in synaptic sensitivity after the passage of a stimulus, resetting the criteria for processing new information, and therefore the result of the processing, allowing for mental changes to alter responses to stimuli. The number of degrees of freedom that humans have is far greater than other creatures. "We are the only creatures whose members can imagine the adaptive landscape of possibilitis beyond the physical landscape, who can "see" across the valleys to other conceivable peaks" (Daniel Dennett). However, in evolution, free will might exist only as an illusion: "The illusion of free will is deeply ingrained precisely because it prevents us from falling into a suicidally fatalistic state of mind - it is one of the brain's most powerful aids to survival" (Rita Carter). Conway Morris published "The Runes of Evolution", studying convergences of evolution in organisms as they fill the same niches in the environment.  Perhaps intelligence is a solution to a particular niche, and may have evolved in disparate organisms, possibly the octopus. "They possess camera like eyes that are remarkably like ours, and have similar visual processing architecture. Lacking an internal skeleton they have no joints.  Yet when grasping large objects, a wave of muscular contractions stiffens the tentacle in a way that forms a pseudo-joint very much like our elbow to leverage the weight. They learn readily, exhibit individual personality and playfulness, employ tools, and show amazing adaptability in solving problems."Miller comes to a conclusion that humans should be aware of their biological heritage and place in evolution, but also respond with joy and delight as the branch of living diversity that evolved to make sense of it all. "Far from diminishing us, kKnowing the details of Adam's journey enobles us as the carrier of something truly precious - the genetic, biological and cultural heritage of life itself"