The God Gene : How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes
by Dean H. Hamer
Doubleday, 2004

From Publishers Weekly
This book’s title is more rhetorical effect than factual accuracy: Hamer, who discovered the controversial “gay gene” in the 1990s, reports that he has now found a gene that may correlate in some people with their level of spirituality—not with belief in a being we would call God or with the performance of traditional religious practices, but with what psychiatrist Robert Cloninger called “self-transcendence.” This trait is a capacity to feel at one with all life and with the universe as a whole, and Cloninger measured it with personality testing. The so-called “God gene” is a particular location in the human genome known as VMAT2, which affects the brain’s neurotransmitters. Hamer admits that the gene probably accounts for less than 1% of the total variance in human spirituality. The book’s later chapters become still more speculative, as Hamer, a molecular biologist at the National Cancer Institute, considers the scanty evidence of health benefits of spirituality, which would make faith an adaptive evolutionary trait. Hamer emphasizes that the existence of a “God gene” would neither prove nor disprove the reality of God. However, this gracefully written book may intrigue people of all faiths—or no faith—who wonder about the ultimate connection between science and religion.

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Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
October 26, 2004

by Robert Sapolsky
W. H. Freeman, 1998

from Amazon.com
Why don’t zebras get ulcers–or heart disease, diabetes and other chronic diseases–when people do? In a fascinating look at the science of stress, biologist Robert Sapolsky presents an intriguing case, that people develop such diseases partly because our bodies aren’t designed for the constant stresses of a modern-day life–like sitting in daily traffic jams or growing up in poverty. Rather, they seem more built for the kind of short-term stress faced by a zebra–like outrunning a lion.

With wit, graceful writing, and a sprinkling of Far Side cartoons, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers makes understanding the science of stress an adventure in discovery. “This book is a primer about stress, stress-related disease, and the mechanisms of coping with stress. How is it that our bodies can adapt to some stressful emergencies, while other ones make us sick? Why are some of us especially vulnerable to stress-related diseases, and what does that have to do with our personalities?”

Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist, explores stress’s role in heart disease, diabetes, growth retardation, memory loss, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. He cites tantalizing studies of hyenas, baboons, and rodents, as well as of people of different cultures, to vividly make his points. And Sapolsky concludes with a hopeful chapter, titled “Managing Stress.” Although he doesn’t subscribe to the school of thought that hope cures all disease, Sapolsky highlights the studies that suggest we do have some control over stress-related ailments, based on how we perceive the stress and the kinds of social support we have.

“Sapolsky is one of the best science writers of our time.”–Oliver Sacks

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The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
September 3, 2004

by Richard Dawkins
Houghton Mifflin, 2004

from Publishers Weekly
The diversity of the earth’s plant and animal life is amazing—especially when one considers the near certainty that all living things can trace their lineage back to a single ancestor—a bacterium—that lived more than three billion years ago. Taking his cue from Chaucer, noted Oxford biologist Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, etc.) works his way narratively backward through time. As the path reaches points where humanity’s ancestors converge with those of other species—primates, mammals, amphibians and so on—various creatures have tales that carry an evolutionary lesson. The peacock, for example, offers a familiar opportunity to discuss sexual selection, which is soon freshly applied to the question of why humans started walking upright. These passages maintain an erudite yet conversational voice whether discussing the genetic similarities between hippos and whales (a fact “so shocking that I am still reluctant to believe it”) or the existence of prehistoric rhino-sized rodents. The book’s accessibility is crucial to its success, helping to convince readers that, given a time span of millions of years, unlikely events, like animals passing from one continent to another, become practically inevitable. This clever approach to our extended family tree should prove a natural hit with science readers.

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The Company of Strangers : A Natural History of Economic Life
August 19, 2004

by Paul Seabright
Princeton University Press, 2004

from the publisher
Human beings are the only species in nature to have developed an elaborate division of labor between strangers. Even something as simple as buying a shirt depends on an astonishing web of interaction and organization that spans the world. But unlike that other uniquely human attribute, language, our ability to cooperate with strangers did not evolve gradually through our prehistory. Only 10,000 years ago—a blink of an eye in evolutionary time—humans hunted in bands, were intensely suspicious of strangers, and fought those whom they could not flee. Yet since the dawn of agriculture we have refined the division of labor to the point where, today, we live and work amid strangers and depend upon millions more. Every time we travel by rail or air we entrust our lives to individuals we do not know. What institutions have made this possible?

In The Company of Strangers, Paul Seabright provides an original evolutionary and sociological account of the emergence of those economic institutions that manage not only markets but also the world’s myriad other affairs.

Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract reasoning has allowed institutions like money, markets, and cities to provide the foundation of social trust. But how long can the networks of modern life survive when we are exposed as never before to risks originating in distant parts of the globe? This lively narrative shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives.

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Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love
by Helen Fisher
Henry Holt & Company, 2004

From Publishers Weekly

Anthropologist Fisher argues that much of our romantic behavior is hard-wired in this provocative examination of love. Her case is bolstered by behavioral research into the effects of two crucial chemicals, norepinephrine and dopamine, and by surveys she conducted across broad populations. When we fall in love, she says, our brains create dramatic surges of energy that fuel such feelings as passion, obsessiveness, joy and jealousy. Fisher devotes a fascinating and substantial chapter to the appearance of romance and love among non-human animals, and composes careful theories about early humans in love. One of her many surprising conclusions suggests that, since “four-year birth intervals were the regular pattern of birth spacing during our long human prehistory,” our modern brains still deal with relationships in serially monogamous terms of about four years. Indeed, Fisher gathered data from around the world showing that divorce was most prevalent in the fourth year of marriage, when a couple had a single dependent child. Fisher also reports on the behaviors that lead to successful lifelong partnerships and offers, based on what she’s observed, numerous tips on staying in love. And though she’s certain that chemicals are at love’s heart, Fisher never loses her sense of the emotion’s power or poetry.

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A Symphony in the Brain: The Evolution of the New Brain Wave Biofeedback
by Jim Robbins
Grove Press, 2001

Imagine a procedure versatile enough to treat epilepsy, autism, attention deficit disorder, addictions, and depression with no drugs or side effects; to bring patients out of vegetative states; and to improve everything from golf scores to opera singers’ voices. These are only some of the claims made for neurofeedback, a controversial but effective treatment that is revolutionizing the way an incredibly diverse range of medical and psychological conditions are treated. In A Symphony in the Brain, Jim Robbins traces the fascinating, untold story of the development of neurofeedback, from its discovery by a small corps of research psychologists, to its growing application across the country and around the world, to present battles for acceptance in the conservative medical world. Offering a wealth of powerful case studies, accessible scientific explanations, and dramatic personal accounts, Robbins journeys through a remarkable field, which he brings to the public eye for the first time.

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The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness
by Douglas J. Lisle and Alan Goldhamer
Book Publishing Co., 2003

from the publisher
Inspired by stunning original research, comprehensive clinical studies, and their successes with thousands of patients, the authors construct a new paradigm for the psychology of health, offering fresh hope for anyone stuck in a self-destructive rut. Integrating principals of evolutionary biology with trailblazing, proactive strategies for wellness, they argue that people who are chronically overweight, sick and ailing, or junk food junkies aren’t that way because they’re lazy, undisciplined, or stuck with bad genes. The authors reveal that most are victims of a dilemma that harkens back to our prehistoric past—”the Pleasure Trap.”

Dr. Douglas Lisle, who has spent the last two decades researching and studying this evolutionary syndrome, explains that all of us inherit innate incentives from our ancient ancestors that he terms The Motivational Triad: the pursuit of pleasure; the avoidance of pain; and the conservation of energy. Unfortunately, in present day America’s convenience-centric, excess-oriented culture where fast food, recreational drugs, and sedentary shopping have become the norm, these basic instincts that once successfully insured the survival and reproduction of man many millennia ago, no longer serve us well. In fact, it’s our unknowing enslavement to this internal, biological force embedded in the collective memory of our species that is undermining our health and happiness today.

The authors point out that all of us, because of The Motivational Triad, are wired for self-sabotage until we get a firm handle on how these primitive drives specifically betray us in our daily lives, and then learn how to transcend their grip. For example, instead of eating whole natural foods that admittedly require more effort to buy and prepare, most of us, explain Doctors Lisle and Goldhamer “conserve our energy,” by “pursuing the pleasures” of the easily accessible “insta-fare” that promises loads of sugar, fat, and refined carbohydrates. Contrary to popular belief, over-eating has nothing to do with a lack of will power or low self-esteem, insist the authors. The typical American diet, so replete with processed foods, actually fools the senses, leaving people vulnerable to over-consumption.

Doctors Lisle and Goldhamer also examine many other unhealthy habits such as drug and alcohol abuse, sex addiction, and gambling, explaining that these too are the result of being caught in The Pleasure Trap, and that when people stop blaming themselves and others for their frustrating circumstances, and instead focus on reclaiming their power, that’s when their lives will change.

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Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes
by Frans De Waal
HarperCollins, 1983

from the publisher
The first edition of Frans de Waal’s Chimpanzee Politics was acclaimed not only by primatologists for its scientific achievement but also by a much broader audience of politicians, business leaders, and social psychologists for its remarkable insights into very basic human needs and behaviors. In this revised edition—featuring a new gallery of color photographs along with a new introduction and epilogue—de Waal expands and updates his story of the Arnhem colony and its continuing political upheavals. We learn the fate of many memorable chimpanzees and meet the colony’s current leaders and their allies. The new edition remains a detailed and thoroughly engrossing account—of sexual rivalries and coalitions, of actions governed by intelligence rather than instinct—and it reaffirms the complex bond between humans and their closest living relatives. As we watch the chimpanzees of Arnhem behave in ways we recognize from Machiavelli (and from the nightly news), de Waal reminds us again that the roots of politics are older than humanity.

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The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
by Steven Pinker
Perennial Books, 2000

from Publishers Weekly
A three-year-old toddler is “a grammatical genius”—master of most constructions, obeying adult rules of language. To Pinker, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology psycholinguist, the explanation for this miracle is that language is an instinct, an evolutionary adaptation that is partly “hard-wired” into the brain and partly learned. In this exciting synthesis—an entertaining, totally accessible study that will regale language lovers and challenge professionals in many disciplines—Pinker builds a bridge between “innatists” like MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who hold that infants are biologically programmed for language, and “social interactionists” who contend that they acquire it largely from the environment. If Pinker is right, the origins of language go much further back than 30,000 years ago (the date most commonly given in textbooks)—perhaps to Homo habilis, who lived 2.5 million years ago, or even eons earlier. Peppered with mind-stretching language exercises, the narrative first unravels how babies learn to talk and how people make sense of speech. Professor and co-director of MIT’s Center for Cognitive Science, Pinker demolishes linguistic determinism, which holds that differences among languages cause marked differences in the thoughts of their speakers. He then follows neurolinguists in their quest for language centers in the brain and for genes that might help build brain circuits controlling grammar and speech. Pinker also argues that claims for chimpanzees’ acquisition of language (via symbols or American Sign Language) are vastly exaggerated and rest on skimpy data. Finally, he takes delightful swipes at “language mavens” like William Safire and Richard Lederer, accusing them of rigidity and of grossly underestimating the average person’s language skills. Pinker’s book is a beautiful hymn to the infinite creative potential of language.

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