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  • THE SHAPE OF THOUGHT: How Mental Adaptations Evolve (Evolution And Cognition Series)

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THE SHAPE OF THOUGHT: How Mental Adaptations Evolve (Evolution And Cognition Series)

by H. Clark BARRETT (Author) Format: Paperback
3.4 out of 5 stars (12)
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This is an open access title. It is available to read and download as a free PDF version on Oxford Academic and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence.

The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century. It brings together theory from biology and cognitive science to show how the brain can be composed of specialized adaptations, and yet also an organ of plasticity. Although mental adaptations have typically been seen as monolithic, hard-wired components frozen in the evolutionary past, The Shape of Thought presents a new view of mental adaptations as diverse and variable, with distinct functions and evolutionary histories that shape how they develop, what information they use, and what they do with that information.

The book describes how advances in evolutionary developmental biology can be applied to the brain by focusing on the design of the developmental systems that build it. Crucially, developmental systems can be plastic, designed by the process of natural selection to build adaptive phenotypes using the rich information available in our social and physical environments. This approach bridges the long-standing divide between "nativist" approaches to development, based on innateness, and "empiricist" approaches, based on learning. It shows how a view of humans as a flexible, culturally-dependent species is compatible with a complexly specialized brain, and how the nature of our flexibility can be better understood by confronting the evolved design of the organ on which that flexibility depends.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0199348316
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0199348312
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    January 16, 2015
  6. Part of series
    Evolution and Cognition
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    1.2 x 6.1 x 9.1 inches
  9. Print length
    407 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rich and thoughtful, this book lays out why, if we want to understand human psychology, neural plasticity, cultural differences and cognitive development, we need evolutionary theory, and an understanding of how humans evolved. In Barrett's hands, the pernicious dichotomy that divides "learning" from "innate" explanations crumbles, leaving only evolutionary explanations, which may involve different types of developmental processes. In setting the house back in order, Barrett synthesizes insights and findings from psychology, culture-gene coevolutionary theory, anthropology, developmental biology and philosophy. He delivers Evolutionary Psychology 2.0."--Joe Henrich, Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution, University of British Columbia

"In this lucid book, Barrett explains how thinking about the evolution of the mind should shape our understanding of how the mind works. Bringing sophisticated knowledge of evolutionary biology and cognitive science together, he reconciles opposing views about the role of learning and culture in the workings of the human mind. This book will be the bible for a broader, more inclusive evolutionary psychology."--Rob Boyd, Origins Professor, Arizona State University

"Barrett has read your mind, and knows your questions. He will lead you gently but fiercely through the controversies that surround evolutionary psychology and cognitive science, showing you that one cannot exist without the other."--Leda Cosmides, Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Clark Barrett takes the reader from the basics of evolutionary psychology to exciting stuff at the cutting-edge of today's research. He does so with splendid clarity, illuminating examples, and an engaging balance of wisdom and passion. An important book and an excellent read!"--Dan Sperber, Professor of Cognitive Science and of Philosophy at the Central European University, Budapest

"The author, a biological anthropologist specializing in evolutionary psychology and Professor at University of California (UCLA), is undoubtedly informed and it is able to contextualize where does the field of evolutionary psychology stands today."
--Metapsychology

Book Description

The Shape of Thought: How Mental Adaptations Evolve presents a road map for an evolutionary psychology of the twenty-first century.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 16, 2015
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 407 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199348316
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199348312
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1.2 x 6.1 x 9.1 inches
  • Part of series ‏ : ‎ Evolution and Cognition
  • Best Sellers Rank: #460,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.4 out of 5 stars (12)

About the author

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H. Clark Barrett

H. Clark Barrett

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Customer reviews

3.4 out of 5 stars
12 global ratings
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Top reviews from the United States

  • C. Legare
    5 out of 5 stars
    Seminal work in cognitive evolution
    Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2021
    Format: Paperback
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    This is among the very best books written on the topic of cognitive evolution by a world expert on this topic. I use it to teach a graduate class on cognitive and cultural evolution, and couldn't recommend it more highly. Truly outstanding!

    4 people found this helpful
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  • Alex M.
    1 out of 5 stars
    Sort of not useful
    Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2019
    Format: Paperback
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    This is a brilliantly argued, wonderfully informative, book that is as comprehensive as it is useless. Over 300 pages and nothing more useful than I found on the Wikipedia article. Though hundreds of examples and even more citations the author make the case that evolution shaped the mind, piling on one mental adaptation upon another without any interest in an "end". The author states in the first 200 pages the party line as it were of cognitive phycology. Evolution looks for a good enough solution to a problem and there are problems of "bets" that things will be a certain way, that the problem of visual representations on the mind, that mental frames affect our thinking, social evolution is mediated by representations of others.

    3 people found this helpful
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  • bsuddath
    5 out of 5 stars
    An essential review of evolution's role in psychology
    Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2015
    Format: Paperback
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    Clark Barrett's The Shape of Thought is a lucid and important work that formulates a modern approach to studying the mind by taking seriously the consequences of viewing the mind as the product of evolution and seeing what this entails. This approach inevitably requires abandoning long-held naïve conceptions of mind--still prevalent in psychology and neuroscience--that essentially approach the mind in a dualistic fashion. Barrett shows that this dualism results in biologically implausible hypotheses that unjustifiably divide the mind into a set of two opposing processes: domain-specific ones, which are responsible for behavior that is evolved and therefore innate or instinctive, and domain general processes, which are learned and therefore responsible for flexibility and higher cognitive functions. Barrett exposes this simplification as unrealistic; the products of evolution are created by the process of development, which requires two-way interactions between genes and the environment. Learned, then, should not necessarily be seen as opposed to evolved. For example, it may be (and certainly in many cases is) the case that evolution uses environmental input in the form of learning as part of the stimulus required to produce its target phenotype. Barrett further shows that the flexibility of the human mind is unlikely to be purely the result of a single general-purpose learning mechanism. Instead he shows how flexibility can arise from the interactions of multiple specialized components and that in many cases this is more consistent with what we know about how evolution works, as well as with the current evidence we have from developmental biology and neuroscience. Showing the flaws in this dualistic approach to the mind is the crux of Barrett's argument, but the book is not limited to this. It also contains fascinating discussions of theory of mind, answers questions about cultural evolution, shows why the "gene shortage" argument is incorrect, and shows how moving targets are not the evolutionary problem many researchers think they are. The Shape of Thought is an excellent refutation to many critics of evolutionary psychology and is an essential read for anyone looking to understand how the mind is likely to have evolved.

    15 people found this helpful
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  • CS
    5 out of 5 stars
    Deeply informative and thought-provoking
    Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2023
    Format: Paperback
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    Barrett's "The Shape of Thought" is perhaps the best book that is available on the evolution of the human mind

    One person found this helpful
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  • Rebecka Hahnel-Peeters
    5 out of 5 stars
    Must-read for the student of human behavior
    Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2021
    Format: Kindle
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    Barrett argues for the importance of evolutionary reasoning applied to human behavior in this book. While the topic is extremely dense, Barrett's conversational tone makes it as easy as possible to digest. Any student of human behavior should read this book; I promise they will think about things in a new light after being exposed to this book.

    One person found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    5 out of 5 stars
    Highly recommended.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2015
    Format: Paperback
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    Full of new ideas about the evolution of the mind. Will challenge your preconceptions about why we think the way we do. A fresh take on evolutionary psychology that is incisive, readable, and unconventional. Highly recommended.

    7 people found this helpful
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