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The Evolution of a Social Mind
University Of Chicago Press
September 2008
On Sale: September 15, 2008
358 pages
ISBN: 0226102440
EAN: 9780226102443
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
In 1838 Charles Darwin jotted in a notebook, “He who
understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than
Locke.” Baboon Metaphysics is Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert
M. Seyfarth’s fascinating response to Darwin’s challenge.
Cheney and Seyfarth set up camp in Botswana’s
Okavango Delta, where they could intimately observe baboons
and their social world. Baboons live in groups of up to
150, including a handful of males and eight or nine
matrilineal families of females. Such numbers force baboons
to form a complicated mix of short-term bonds for mating
and longer-term friendships based on careful calculations
of status and individual need.
But Baboon Metaphysics is concerned with much
more than just baboons’ social organization—Cheney and
Seyfarth aim to fully comprehend the intelligence that
underlies it. Using innovative field experiments, the
authors learn that for baboons, just as for humans, family
and friends hold the key to mitigating the ill effects of
grief, stress, and anxiety.
Written with a scientist’s precision and a
nature-lover’s eye, Baboon Metaphysics gives us an
unprecedented and compelling glimpse into the mind of
another species.
“The vivid narrative is like a bush detective story.”—
Steven Poole, Guardian
“Baboon Metaphysics is a distillation of a big chunk of
academic lives. . . . It is exactly what such a book should
be—full of imaginative experiments, meticulous scholarship,
limpid literary style, and above all, truly important
questions.”—Alison Jolly, Science
“Cheney and Seyfarth found that for a baboon to get on in
life involves a complicated blend of short-term
relationships, friendships, and careful status
calculations. . . . Needless to say, the ensuing political
machinations and convenient romantic dalliances in the
quest to become numero uno rival the bard himself.”—Science
News “Cheney and Seyfarth’s enthusiasm is obvious, and
their knowledge is vast and expressed with great clarity.
All this makes Baboon Metaphysics a captivating read. It
will get you thinking—and maybe spur you to travel to
Africa to see it all for yourself.”—Asif A. Ghazanfar,
Nature
“Through ingenious playback experiments . . . Cheney and
Seyfarth have worked out many aspects of what baboons used
their minds for, along with their limitations. Reading a
baboon’s mind affords an excellent grasp of the dynamics of
baboon society. But more than that, it bears on the
evolution of the human mind and the nature of human
existence.”—Nicholas Wade, New York Times
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