The Goodness Paradox The Strange Relationship Between Virtu, De Wrangham, Richard. Editorial Vintage, Tapa Blanda En Inglés, 2019

Descripción

"The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution" es un análisis fascinante de la violencia humana, lleno de ideas frescas y evidencia convincente de nuestros primos primates, antepasados históricos y vecinos contemporáneos. Homo sapiens puede ser la especie más amable y también la más desagradable. ¿Qué ocurrió durante la evolución humana para dar cuenta de este paradigma? ¿Cuáles son los dos tipos de agresión a los que son propensos los primates y por qué evolucionaron por separado? ¿Cómo se compara la intensidad de la violencia entre los humanos con el comportamiento agresivo de otros primates? ¿Cómo se domesticaron los humanos? ¿Y cómo fueron la adquisición del lenguaje y la práctica del castigo capital factores determinantes en el surgimiento de la cultura y la civilización?

El antropólogo biológico Richard Wrangham argumenta de manera autoritaria, provocativa y atractiva por la necesidad de tolerancia social y el control de la división salvaje que aún nos persigue hoy. Al rastrear las historias evolutivas de la agresión reactiva y proactiva, Wrangham ofrece una teoría originalmente sorprendente de cómo, en los últimos 250 millones de años, la humanidad se convirtió en una especie cada vez más pacífica en las interacciones diarias, mientras que su capacidad para la violencia devastadora y fríamente planificada permanece sin disminuir.

"Highly original . . . complex and ambitious . . . A story about the origins of morality that begins" hundreds of thousands of years before any creature had a sense of right and wrong, or even a sense of self . . . There is something impressive, even moving, about the book’s sifting, weighing, and fitting together of evidence from a half-dozen continents, a dozen disciplines, several dozen species, and two million years into a large and intricate structure. There is also a lesson: evolution is much less relevant to our growth than moral imagination.-George Scialabba, The New Yorker

"Wrangham probes the deep evolutionary history of human aggression . . . this book [is] essential reading as geneticists start to unwrap the package of genes that responded to domestication, which may give hints about our own evolutionary history."-The Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating . . . The Goodness Paradox pieces together findings from anthropology, history, and biology to reconstruct a vivid and comprehensive history of how humans evolved into domesticated creatures . . . presents a complex but convincing perspective on how good and evil may have come to co-exist in our unique species."-The Washington Post

"[Wrangham] deploys fascinating facts of natural history and genetics as he enters a debate staked out centuries ago by Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (among other philosophers), and still very much alive today: how to understand the conjunction of fierce aggression and cooperative behavior in humans . . . This latest version[of human evolution] is bound to provoke controversy, but that’s what bold theorizing is supposed to do. And Wrangham is nothing if not bold as he puts the paradox in his title to use. In his telling, the dark side of protohuman nature was enlisted in the evolution of communal harmony . . . Wrangham has highlighted a puzzle at the core of human evolution, and delivered a reminder of the double-edged nature of our virtues and vices."-The Atlantic

"A work accessible to those outside the scientific field, offering a great deal of information."-Library Journal

"Based on Richard Wrangham’s path-breaking work and on many riveting examples, this magnificent and profound book shows how our violent, even murderous, impulses actually shaped our species to be kind and cooperative, progressively shaping our evolutionary trajectory, our moral expectations, and our genes."-Nicholas A. Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale University

"A brilliant analysis of the role of aggression in our evolutionary history."-Jane Goodall, author of In the Shadow of Man

"Richard Wrangham’s new book could not be more timely . . . This is no dry academic survey, but a fascinating journey into our past, and the rare academic who can both do the science and tell a ripping yarn."-The Guardian