Thumbs, Toes, and Tears: And Other Traits That Make Us Human
Thumbs, Toes, and Tears: And Other Traits That Make Us Human explores six seemingly unconnected but unique human traits—the big toe, our thumbs, our pharynx, tears, kissing, and laughter. Each trait marks a fork in the evolutionary road where we went one way and the rest of the animal kingdom went the other. Thumbs, Toes, and Tears draws on complexity theory, the latest brain scanning techniques, new insights from fields as diverse as anthropology, psychology, neurobiology, even artificial...
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The fascinating evolutionary links between six seemingly unremarkable traits that make us the very remarkable creatures we are. Countless behaviors separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom, but all of them can be traced one way or another to six traits that are unique to the human race—our big toe, our opposable thumb, our oddly shaped pharynx, and our ability to laugh, kiss, and cry. At first glance these may not seem to be connected but they are. Each marks a fork in the evolutionary road where we went one way and the rest of the animal kingdom went another. Each opens small passageways on the peculiar geography of the human heart and mind.Walter weaves together fascinating insights from complexity theory, the latest brain scanning techniques, anthropology, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and robotics to explore how the smallest of changes over the past six million years - all shaped by the forces of evolution — have enabled a primate once on the brink of extinction to evolve into a creature that would one day create all of the grand and exuberant edifices of human culture.As the story of each trait unfolds, Walter explains why our brains grew so large and complex, why we find one another sexually attractive, how toolmaking laid the mental groundwork for language, why we care about what others think, and how we became the creature that laughs and cries and falls in love. Thumbs, Toes and Tears is original, informative, and delightfully thought-provoking. Publishers Weekly Humans are the only creatures that cry for both grief and happiness, although many animals shed tears that help protect their eyes. As science journalist and former CNN bureau chief Walter tells readers in this fascinating and superbly written book, there are a handful of characteristics (like crying) that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom and can be explained in evolutionary terms as having been advantageous for our distant ancestors. Laughter is one: dogs may bark happily when they get to go for a ride or play with their canine neighbors, but only humans break into chortles and guffaws. Walter (who coauthored I'm Working on That with William Shatner) says that laughter helps us bond with our friends and co-workers. He points out that we give our big toe little thought until we stub it, but its evolution allowed Homo erectus to stand upright millions of years ago and led to other helpful evolutionary features, like the pharynx which in turn made speech possible. Readers also learn why we tousle our children's hair, why kissing is so much fun and what may lie ahead as we near the end of our current evolutionary reel. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Foreword Ray Kurzweil vPrologue xiToesThe Curious Tale of the Hallux Magnus 3Standing Up: Sex and the Single Hominid 27ThumbsMothers of Invention 45Homo hallucinator-the Dream Animal 63PharynxMaking Thoughts Out of Thin Air 85I Am Me: The Rise of Consciousness 103Words, Grooming, and the Opposite Sex 119LaughterHowls, Hoots, and Calls 143TearsThe Creature That Weeps 165KissingThe Language of Lips 183Epilogue Cyber sapiens: The Human Race, Version 2.0 207Acknowledgments 215Bibliography 217Notes 223Index 245
\ Publishers WeeklyHumans are the only creatures that cry for both grief and happiness, although many animals shed tears that help protect their eyes. As science journalist and former CNN bureau chief Walter tells readers in this fascinating and superbly written book, there are a handful of characteristics (like crying) that distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom and can be explained in evolutionary terms as having been advantageous for our distant ancestors. Laughter is one: dogs may bark happily when they get to go for a ride or play with their canine neighbors, but only humans break into chortles and guffaws. Walter (who coauthored I'm Working on That with William Shatner) says that laughter helps us bond with our friends and co-workers. He points out that we give our big toe little thought until we stub it, but its evolution allowed Homo erectus to stand upright millions of years ago and led to other helpful evolutionary features, like the pharynx which in turn made speech possible. Readers also learn why we tousle our children's hair, why kissing is so much fun and what may lie ahead as we near the end of our current evolutionary reel. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsWalter (Science Writing/Carnegie Mellon Univ.) celebrates Vive la difference-not so much between the sexes as between us and other primates. The author recaps early hominid history on African savannas, detailing how a change in the position of the big toe (facing forward and not sideways) enabled not only upright posture but facility in movement. The opposable thumb in turn was the nifty mutation that led to a tool-making tradition. Now add neoteny, the delay in development so that adult forms of a species retain some infantile characteristics. In the case of Homo sapiens, neoteny means that babies are born highly immature, a painful compromise made necessary to allow the baby's head to pass through a birth canal narrowed by the change to upright posture. These are twice-told tales, which Walter narrates with flair and enthusiasm, often relating the anatomical change to behavior. In the case of babies, there is a need for extended periods of parental care and nurturing, with all that implies about social bonding, securing a helpful mate and so on. For the rest of the book, Walter embarks on less familiar, more speculative ground. Clearly, language is a distinguishing human characteristic, which depends anatomically on a unique change in the position of the larynx in relation to the pharynx and the tongue, but whether gestures or grunts or both were precursors is not clear. Then it's on to laughter, self-consciousness, tears and kissing: Here, Walter trots out numerous behavioral studies, brain imagings, evolutionary psychology research and anthropological lore to illustrate theories of why the behaviors developed. In general, Walter sees these activities as means of strengtheningcommunication in a species dependent on social interaction. Alas, by the end, he is all too ready to spout arguments on sex differences that parrot ex-Harvard president Lawrence Summers, as well as the bits about males sowing their seed whenever they can, while choosy women look for male power and support. Lively writing throughout-just take some of it with a grain of salt.\ \ \ From the Publisher"With a story teller's skill Chip Walter urges us to see how great things come from small beginnings. He refreshingly points out that while ideas have consequences, so do big toes, opposable thumbs and four other human traits that, mostly, we take for granted. We may have much in common with the animal world, but thanks to an unlikely collision of seemingly small evolutionary changes something extraordinary happened — the human race. A fascinating read." —Michael S. Gazzaniga, Ph.D. Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College, and author of The Ethical Brain "Eons ago, we started to stand straight with our big toes, freeing our hands, evolving our thumbs, manipulating our environment, transforming the thoughts in our expanded brains into changed realities. In this brilliant account of how the majestic human enterprise started from these humble beginnings, Chip Walter vividly tells the ambiguous, messy, and utterly fascinating stories that led to our becoming the technology-creating species." —Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology\ \
