El cerebro: Big Bangs, comportamientos y creencias

by Rob DeSalle, Ian Tattersall, Irene Cifuentes de Castro (Traductora)

Tras varios millones de años avanzando a trompicones por el espacio ecológico, el único superviviente de una gran cantidad de especies de homínidos que se mantiene en pie es el hombre. Los seres humanos son criaturas extraordinarias, y lo son gracias a su cerebro. En este libro, los autores presentan por primera vez la evolución del cerebro y el sistema nervioso paso a paso. Utilizando los más recientes descubrimientos en biología evolutiva, neurociencia y biología molecular, Rob DeSalle e Ian Tattersall explican cómo ocurrió el salto cognitivo que nos separa de todos los demás seres vivos. Discuten el desarrollo y la singularidad de la conciencia humana, cómo funcionan los cerebros humanos y no humanos, el papel que juegan las diferentes células nerviosas, la importancia de la memoria y el lenguaje en las funciones del cerebro, y mucho más. Nuestro cerebro, concluyen, es el producto de una historia larga y sumamente desordenada —un proceso evolutivo con muchos zigs zags— que de modo accidental dió lugar a un producto maravillosamente excéntrico y creativo.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Brain, Neuroscience

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 24, 2012

About the author

Rob DeSalle is curator of entomology in the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. He is author or coauthor of dozens of books, several based upon exhibitions at the AMNH, including The Brain: Big Bangs, Behaviors, and Beliefs and A Natural History of Wine, coauthored with Ian Tattersall and published by Yale University Press. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[K. Counihan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for the Layperson

This is more for academics than the general reader. This is literally the entire history of the brain. It starts out with the prehistoric caveman through the evolution of man up to and including the present day. The material is very dense and quite boring. The last chapter 10 , was very interesting and very good. I have other books on the brain that I have read that were easier to read.

[Toño Piñeiro]

♣️Rey de tréboles♣️


El cerebro: Big Bangs, comportamientos y creencias... es un libro de divulgación científica que busca proponer una descripción de la evolución y funcionamiento del cerebro humano desde una perspectiva que rechaza el antropocentrismo facilón que declara al ser humano la cúspide de la evolución: al contrario, los autores buscan indagar en cuál es el nuestro lugar dentro del Gran Árbol de la Vida en este planeta.

El estilo se balancea constantemente entre exposición especializada y divulgación científica: hay partes (especialmente al inicio) donde los temas más complejos exigen muros de texto aderezados con conceptos científicos que complican la lectura para los no iniciados; afortunadamente también las hay, especialmente en la segunda mitad, donde la explicación toma la batuta y vemos ideas mucho más aterrizadas y cercanas al lector de a pie, especialmente en el capítulo 10 Cerebro humano y evolución cognitiva, donde los escritores alcanzan una claridad y agudeza envidiables.

Un libro ampliamente documentado que tiene varias capas de lectura, según el nivel de conocimiento previo que tenga el lector y su interés por el tema, que indudablemente estimula el coco y eso, en mi opinión, es mucho muy importante.

Y ya está.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

***Update***: 12/21/12
I may be at a loss for words for the first time. This book has me strangely weepy. It was an evolutionary journey via understanding these huge, complicated steps in not only our evolution, but the evolution of everything that is alive right now! Big ideas I took away from book: language, climate change, and the ability to think symbolically were huge for us homo sapiens. Our journey, even if it was brain tissue, started at the time of the big bang! We are superior to every thing on this planet, but it's specific to our species; a dog kicks our asses in the olfactory category. Our ability to think symbolically was a MAJOR leap in our evolution! Our brains are messy, but it's worked in our favor. Brain size is huge in evolution, but what makes us stand apart from anything else is our brains' abilities to function differently than any other brain. Our evolution has been of a general kind, rather than of a specialist kind, but, again, that works in our favor. Evolution has not been a steady line of improvement, but rather, random acquisitions that we see as propitious after the acquisition. Everything on the tree of evolutionary life is master for its point. The book is stunning.

I'm in the last stretch! Finished reading differences between hominids (who vocalized but didn't have speech) and us. Also learned that chimps and hominids have the same verbal repertoire, but chimps aren't perspicacious. Just reading about how we humans have the ability to think about our thinking. It's a glorious book, even if a challenging one. Can't wait to finish it!
This book is really hard to wade through because it requires concentration and a willingness to get it. It is unbelievably humbling, too. Our bodies and brains are so vast, it'll make you feel the awe you'd feel if you've been to the Grand Canyon. Just got through a massive portion of the book dealing with the relaying of neurotransmitters in our brains and how they're racing up and down through our nervous systems. Your brain will go bonkers when smelling a cookie - seriously. Also, I got an understanding of how our "action potentials"--neurotransmitters and such--connect to the synapses, and how the synapses clean up after the carrying because, if they don't, the synapses will get clogged and won't be able to respond to the next action potential being shot its way. I just finished reading a part where gene expression is talked about and how that expression, to a great extent, enhances our cognition and brain size. The book is a hard one, but it's well worth it. Can't wait to see the big bang at the end ... hahahaha.

Possibly, the best defense of evolution for the novice evolutionist. There's no room for the Bible with this book, as when it starts talking about the Big Bang Theory (the two versions of it)and, when it starts talking about when protons and neutrons first came about, it takes the tale of creationism and flushes down the toilet straight to hell. It's a complex read because you are introduced to many ideas, for example, the idea of phylogenetics: what one thing is and what it is not. It also gives a context on how evolution actually works and how it can't operate with prescience; it can only operate under already existing evolutionary conditions. I'm reading the part about the senses now, and I'm impressed with how many times the good ol' eyeball has evolved at least 20 times. A good book and one that brings the mosaic to the evolutionary pieces of our natural world.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book about the evolution of the brain, starting with the most primitive brains of lower organisms through the human brain.

It has some important insights such as:

“There are certain things the human brain does that are clearly unique. Among these are language and music... Language is more than just communicating... But one of the more important aspects of language is that it permits us to think in the unusual way we do. Language provides us with a way of categorizing the world around us into discrete abstract symbols that we can shuffle in our minds, and it gives us the organizational rules that we need to link and rearrange those symbols into coherent ideas. Without language we would be unable not only to communicate as we do, but also to think so uniquely.”

“Out ability to think easily in the context of time, to anticipate the future, and to synthesize the past are all important aspects of the uniqueness of our brains when compared to other brains on the planet.”

But, ultimately, the book was disappointing.

“After examining everything we know about our long series of ancestors, whether hypothetical or matched by some living form, or known in the fossil record, we still have no idea exactly how our symbolic consciousness came about or how it is enabled by the particular wiring of our brains... We are nowhere near comprehending how all those electrochemical signals in our brains add up to what we encounter daily as our consciousness.”

[Sam knowles · Rating 5 out of 5]

so far I'm very intrigued by the modern advances in biology, namely that of neuroscience and the cognitive evolution of beings with a cranial cortex. this book is very technical (this was published by a Yale professor, what you'd expect) but powerfully informative in almost any aspect imagine able. you get a good tour through the biological evolution of all sentient (and not so sentient) beings, tracing our psychological roots down to the last g-protein coupled receptor and action potential.

I consider this book more focused on evolutionary biology so far, but he does dip into neuroscience later on at about the third chapter pertaining to the senses. he definitely spends more time discussing the bare chemical reactions associated with primary mental functions, such as memory and aptitude. unlike 'traditional' psychologists, he likes to talk about chemical reactions and electrical impulses via synapses and cellular membranes rather than use that jargon like 'ego' or 'subconscious' the conventional psychologists were trained to use.

apart from that, he also likes to liken our own brain structure to that of other mammals and vertebrates, and, ironically, fungi. how so, a lot of DNA sequencing, data sheets and complicated field studies. despite that I can't stress enough the absolute knowledge is incredible, but hard to grasp for the non science type. even physicists can't catch this the first time around! (yes I am one by the way). overall this is a great book, but beware if you hate technical stuff, this ones a doozy! :)

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting more of how the brain actually works. What this is is more or less a book about the evolution of brains in general and the human brain specifically with special emphasis on how evolution is not really the perfecting force that it is made out to be, but largely reliant on random effects in small populations. This is really how humans evolved. Small populations of hominids were isolated in the eastern half of Africa and exposed to severe fluctuations in climate. Over long periods of time these populations responded with bipedalism and expanded brain capacity. At some point symbolic thought (language, art, music, etc) was added to the mix either through cultural or some unknown evolutionary adaptation (it is hard to tell differences in the brain from fossils). This huge change allowed human beings to be much more successful in exploiting the resources in varied climates than other hominids (including the Neanderthal with a more or less equivalent brain capacity).

[Uyar · Rating 3 out of 5]

we humans are precisely the kind of product you would expect from an opportunistic process that is NOT in the least concerned with optimization... sad but true ;) the book explains it in details. but many unanswered questions remain and it is not for beginners

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly? So far, I am far from impressed. I have read several books on the evolution of the brain and this one is the worst--unprofessional and poorly sited. It could be that it is written for beginners and uses a conversational style that I find irksome...

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neuroscience and evolution for beginner, very interesting!!!

THANKS TO NETGALLEY AND YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE PREVIEW

[Dj · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read about the evolution of the human brain. Thought provoking, shows how complexity arises from small change.

[Oné Pagán · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hi! Here's a link to my original review at my personal blog:

http://baldscientist.wordpress.com/20...

[Mills College Library]

612.82 D4417 2014