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The Accidental Homo Sapiens: Genetics, Behavior, and Free Will
What happens now that human population has outpaced biological natural selection? Two leading scientists reveal how we became who we are—and what we might become.
When we think of evolution, the image that likely comes to mind is the iconic, straight-forward image of a primate morphing into a human being. Yet random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to "stick" in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely to happen in large ones.
With our enormous and seemingly inexorably expanding population, humanity has fallen under the influence of the famous (or infamous) “bell curve.” This revelatory new book explores what the future of our species could hold, while simultaneously revealing what we didn’t become—and what we won’t become.
A cognitively unique species, our actions fall on a bell curve as well. Individuals may be saintly or evil, narrow-minded or visionary. But it is possible not just for the species, but for a person to be all of these things—even in a single day. We all fall somewhere within the giant hyperspace of the human condition that these curves describe.
The Accidental Homo Sapiens shows readers that though humanity now exists on this bell curve, we are far from a stagnant species. Tattersall and DeSalle reveal how biological evolution in modern humans has given way to a cultural dynamic that is unlike anything else the Earth has ever witnessed, and that will keep life interesting—perhaps sometimes too interesting—for as long as we exist on this planet.
When we think of evolution, the image that likely comes to mind is the iconic, straight-forward image of a primate morphing into a human being. Yet random events have played huge roles in determining the evolutionary histories of everything from lobsters to humans. However, random genetic novelties are most likely to "stick" in small populations. It is mathematically unlikely to happen in large ones.
With our enormous and seemingly inexorably expanding population, humanity has fallen under the influence of the famous (or infamous) “bell curve.” This revelatory new book explores what the future of our species could hold, while simultaneously revealing what we didn’t become—and what we won’t become.
A cognitively unique species, our actions fall on a bell curve as well. Individuals may be saintly or evil, narrow-minded or visionary. But it is possible not just for the species, but for a person to be all of these things—even in a single day. We all fall somewhere within the giant hyperspace of the human condition that these curves describe.
The Accidental Homo Sapiens shows readers that though humanity now exists on this bell curve, we are far from a stagnant species. Tattersall and DeSalle reveal how biological evolution in modern humans has given way to a cultural dynamic that is unlike anything else the Earth has ever witnessed, and that will keep life interesting—perhaps sometimes too interesting—for as long as we exist on this planet.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2019
16 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 16, 2019
Interesting coincidence that I would grab this book at the library at the same time I grabbed "The Social Leap". TSL makes a case that behaviors can be & are inherited on the same basis as genetic traitss. AHS says pretty much the opposite. Traits are determined by a vast array of genes among other things & should be considered as variables within normal distributions. This book starts out very technical & I almost put it down because of lack of background & interest in the nuts & bolts but I persevered & was glad for having done so.
June 29, 2021
Thoroughly convincing argument against the reductionist notion among evolutionary psychologists that genes alone determine everything about our species, including behavior. They quash the idea that if a person's genome is successfully mapped, evolutionary psychologists can then determine what that person will be. The authors point out that it is important to factor the interaction of genes with their environment at particular times in order to make some general sense of why humans behave the way they do. Behaviorally, most of us fall in the middle of a bell curve, they argue, where one extreme on one side (altruistic) and another extreme on the other (antisocial) reside. Both extremes are rare in humans. We range in behaviors within the bell curve and oscillate back and forth from the middle.
May 24, 2019
I really like the conversational tone of the work and the obvious enjoyment the authors have for the subject. I also can picture these two guys working together and having dinner with their wives and sitting around arguing the ins and outs of their current subject. I would rate this a 3.5 mainly because I enjoyed the overall discussion and sometimes meandering offshoots of the topic. But...I have also done a lot of reading on the subject and I don't agree with everything they are saying. I think they overlook the elephant in the room due to wishful thinking. Even so, this was an enjoyable read.
November 29, 2023
Este libro me hizo retrasarme mucho, odio la genética por lo visto. El libro tiene un tono de conversación, pero asume que sabes exactamente de qué están hablando, entonces si no sabes vas a ver de qué esta hablando y te tardas más en regresar a donde te quedaste, supongo que si lo lees sin importarte de qué esta hablando se va más rápido.
July 30, 2021
I usually enjoy this sort of thing (and I think I've read one or two other of Tattersall's books), but this was not my favorite.
It seems mostly to counter arguments against evolutionary psychologists, but the author seems to be refuting claims that evolutionary psychologists are not making.
It seems mostly to counter arguments against evolutionary psychologists, but the author seems to be refuting claims that evolutionary psychologists are not making.
October 2, 2025
How early Homo Sapiens became the unique modern species
This book presents the ancient history of homo sapiens where culture, ideas, technology, and behavior played a significant role in their evolution: Natural Selection was not the major force. The focus is the cognitive emergence of symbolic thought, communication, languages, creating cultural values, scientific, philosophical, and theological enquiry, and making sense of the larger picture of our existence in the cosmos. According to the author, genetic influence is not wholly responsible but the cultural and environmental impact is also significant. The ecological of small and isolated population, later migrations, chance mutations, and unpredictable environmental shifts eventually led to the present hominid species. The path to us was not inevitable, because several traits and evolutionary possibilities never happened.
The author has missed some key publications in recent years that are relevant to this book. The origin story of Homo Sapiens contains several partly connected populations across Africa (a metapopulation or “pan-African” model) whose interactions, local adaptations and occasional mixing produced the anatomy and behaviors were from one or more dispersals carried by the descendants from Africa. This largest continent with diverse regional ecologies provided opportunities to independently evolve into several closely related hominid species. There are several closely related “early” Home Sapiens that have not been identified because of lack of fossilized specimens.
late Middle Pleistocene Africa (781,000 to 126,000 years ago) hosted several semi-isolated, closely related populations (different regions, sometimes diverged for tens to hundreds of thousands of years) that exchanged genes episodically; modern humans emerged from that structured network rather than from a single isolated population. There is no evidence for a simple “one-place, one-time” origin story for Homo sapiens. A range of behavior and choice like our moral, ethical, and personal behavior lies along a normal distribution statistic.
Some sections in this book are dense due to the aspects of population genetics, statistics (Bell curve – normal distribution), and philosophy of “free will” explored in the evolution of homo sapiens. Especially the idea of “free will” which is loaded with neurobiology, physics, and philosophy addressed by several other authors recently is lightly overseen in this book.
This book presents the ancient history of homo sapiens where culture, ideas, technology, and behavior played a significant role in their evolution: Natural Selection was not the major force. The focus is the cognitive emergence of symbolic thought, communication, languages, creating cultural values, scientific, philosophical, and theological enquiry, and making sense of the larger picture of our existence in the cosmos. According to the author, genetic influence is not wholly responsible but the cultural and environmental impact is also significant. The ecological of small and isolated population, later migrations, chance mutations, and unpredictable environmental shifts eventually led to the present hominid species. The path to us was not inevitable, because several traits and evolutionary possibilities never happened.
The author has missed some key publications in recent years that are relevant to this book. The origin story of Homo Sapiens contains several partly connected populations across Africa (a metapopulation or “pan-African” model) whose interactions, local adaptations and occasional mixing produced the anatomy and behaviors were from one or more dispersals carried by the descendants from Africa. This largest continent with diverse regional ecologies provided opportunities to independently evolve into several closely related hominid species. There are several closely related “early” Home Sapiens that have not been identified because of lack of fossilized specimens.
late Middle Pleistocene Africa (781,000 to 126,000 years ago) hosted several semi-isolated, closely related populations (different regions, sometimes diverged for tens to hundreds of thousands of years) that exchanged genes episodically; modern humans emerged from that structured network rather than from a single isolated population. There is no evidence for a simple “one-place, one-time” origin story for Homo sapiens. A range of behavior and choice like our moral, ethical, and personal behavior lies along a normal distribution statistic.
Some sections in this book are dense due to the aspects of population genetics, statistics (Bell curve – normal distribution), and philosophy of “free will” explored in the evolution of homo sapiens. Especially the idea of “free will” which is loaded with neurobiology, physics, and philosophy addressed by several other authors recently is lightly overseen in this book.
August 18, 2019
Too much DNA statistical stuff, but good info.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews