Humans: Perspectives on Our Evolution from World Experts

Almécija, an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, collects scientific perspectives on human evolution in this wide-ranging compendium. He brings together the responses to a survey he sent to 103 anthropologists, paleontologists, psychologists, and other experts, on the driving factors behind evolution and what the future of humanity might look like. Anthropologist Matt Cartmill credits the emergence of making tools for distinguishing the proto-human lineage from other apes and suggests toolmaking instructions constituted the earliest language. Other contributors credit bipedalism, the shape of the human hand, and language for setting humans apart, though some proffer more surprising candidates, such as archeologist John Shea’s proposal that reductions in the size of hominin canine teeth may have driven the need to adopt tools. The predictions about how human evolution might play out are bleak but fascinating, with primatologist Sarah Hrdy predicting that humans will grow less compassionate because there’s no longer evolutionary pressure for children to ingratiate themselves with caretakers for survival. The entries range in quality from relatively superficial to thoughtful, and while they can grow tedious when read sequentially (they’re all structured following the same 11-question survey), they nonetheless deliver intriguing insights. The result is a panoramic view of the state of evolutionary science. (May)