Why Humans Prevail

[rug]

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
By Yuval Noah Harari (Harper)

April 6, 2015
By Marlene Zuk and Michael L. Wilson

Remember Jared Diamond’s 1997 best seller Guns, Germs and Steel (W.W. Norton)? Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, an international publishing phenomenon now in English translation, is a lot like it, but without the weaponry, disease, or metals. It is audacious in its reach, perhaps even more so than Diamond’s attempt to explain the predominance of Western society. Harari’s goal is to explain nothing less than the predominance, and the character, of humanity itself.

While Diamond focused on the material, Harari, a historian at Hebrew University, points to the role of the imaginary in humanity’s success. It was only when people agreed to hold common myths — whether about money, gods, or limited-liability laws — that he sees humans becoming fundamentally different from other animals.

Reading Sapiens is like looking at one of those pictures that, when viewed from a distance, is clearly a portrait of, say, Lincoln, but when viewed closer turns out to be a mosaic of thousands of other tiny images. But look closely at the tiny images and many of them are just a bit off — a horse with six legs, or George Washington wearing a cocktail dress. The big picture is compelling, admirably composed by making connections among disparate topics, but some details, from the role of mutation in speciation to the timing of the cognitive revolution, reveal misunderstandings or outdated views.

The first part of the book dwells on human exceptionalism, and the ways that people are not like other species, or even much like our early human ancestors. Such comparisons often become self-fulfilling, not to mention self-congratulatory: People possess Characteristic A, which other animals do not, which must mean that Characteristic A is not only key to being human but also laudable. In Sapiens’ case, the characteristics are sometimes flimsy. For example, although Harari correctly nods to the influence of both genes and the environment on all behaviors, he also claims that "in a given environment, animals of the same species will tend to behave in a similar way," whereas humans are all different. In the case of the honeybee, "its DNA programs the necessary behaviors for whatever role it will fulfill in life." But anyone observing animals, whether insects or apes, will soon see far more variation than they expected. We all tend to see more minute variations in those most resembling us.

http://chronicle.com/article/Book-Review-Why-Humans/229025/