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Index
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Human Niche
The Human Paradox
Campfire
Culture versus Consciousness
Adaptation and Lineage
The Omega Principle
Chapter 2: A Brief History of the Human Lineage
Chapter 3: Ancient Bodies, Modern World
Adaptation and Chesterton’s Fence
Trade-offs
Everyday Costs and Pleasures
Chapter 4: Medicine
Against Reductionism
Considering the Risks of Reductionism as We Choose What to Put in Our Bodies
Bringing Evolution Back to Medicine
Whom to Believe in the Era of Reductionism and Hyper-Novelty
Chapter 5: Food
Tools, Fire, and Cooking
Persuading Wild Foods to Team Up with Us
Loaves and Fishes
Harvest Feast
Chapter 6: Sleep
Dreams and Hallucinations
Nightfall in the Jungle
Novelty and Sleep Disruption
Chapter 7: Sex and Gender
Sex: The Deep History
Sex Changes and Sex Roles
Sexual Selection in Humans
Division of Labor
Sexual Strategies
Failures of Reductionism, Redux: Pornography
Chapter 8: Parenthood and Relationship
Parental Care: Moms, Dads, and Others
Mating Systems
Implications of Monogamy in Humans
Elders and Senescence
Love across Species
Grief
Chapter 9: Childhood
Learning to Navigate Backflips and Traffic
Plasticity
Fragility and Antifragility
Play and Tinkering and Sport
On the Dangers of Apparently Animate Objects That Can’t Respond
Legal Drugs and Children
Does a Butterfly Remember How to Be a Caterpillar?
Chapter 10: School
What Is School?
The World Is Not about You
Higher Ed
Tools Are More Valuable Than Facts
Intellectual Self-Reliance
Calm Down, Level Up
Observation and Nature
Chapter 11: Becoming Adults
Laboratory of the Self
Types of Reality
On the Benefits of Close Calls
On Fairness and Theory of Mind
On Addiction
Chapter 12: Culture and Consciousness
Consciousness in Other Animals
Innovation at the Margins of the Ancestors’ Wisdom
Conformity
Literally False, Metaphorically True
Religion and Ritual
Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll: On the Sacred versus the Shamanistic
Chapter 13: The Fourth Frontier
Senescence of Civilization
The Maya
Obstacles to the Fourth Frontier
Leveling Up
Epilogue
Tradition, and How to Tweak It
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Recommended Further Reading
Notes
Index
About the Author
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