[books 2013] Paleofantasy
Aug. 7th, 2013 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inulro46. Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells us About Sex, Diet and How We Live by Marlene Zuk
Sick of scientific illiterates telling you that we're not "evolved" to live the way we do? This is the book for you.
Full of interesting facts detailing how we are still evolving, we were never "perfectly evolved" to match our environment (and anyway that concept brings one up against the erroneous idea that evolution has a goal or direction), how we have so evolved the ability to digest grain (and that we've been doing it for far longer than most of those "paleo" types would have you believe) and some of us have an undoubted genetic marker allowing us to digest milk. And anyway, humans are a succesful species because we adapt so well to just about everything - so far, the only thing that's definitively a step too far is spending time in zero gravity.
While she's hilariously dismissive of some of the more whack-job stuff she's found online, Zuk engages intelligently with actual scientific research that argues against, say, persistence hunting as an early human feature.
This is an engaging read that I can't recommend highly enough.
47. Unseen by Karin Slaughter
The latest in the Sara Linton/Will Trent detective series. It must have been good because I read it in less than three days, but not a lot sunk in. Way more disposable than the last one, Criminal.
I still love Will, though.
Sick of scientific illiterates telling you that we're not "evolved" to live the way we do? This is the book for you.
Full of interesting facts detailing how we are still evolving, we were never "perfectly evolved" to match our environment (and anyway that concept brings one up against the erroneous idea that evolution has a goal or direction), how we have so evolved the ability to digest grain (and that we've been doing it for far longer than most of those "paleo" types would have you believe) and some of us have an undoubted genetic marker allowing us to digest milk. And anyway, humans are a succesful species because we adapt so well to just about everything - so far, the only thing that's definitively a step too far is spending time in zero gravity.
While she's hilariously dismissive of some of the more whack-job stuff she's found online, Zuk engages intelligently with actual scientific research that argues against, say, persistence hunting as an early human feature.
This is an engaging read that I can't recommend highly enough.
47. Unseen by Karin Slaughter
The latest in the Sara Linton/Will Trent detective series. It must have been good because I read it in less than three days, but not a lot sunk in. Way more disposable than the last one, Criminal.
I still love Will, though.
