Summary of Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Our species, the Homo sapiens, is a peculiar primate. We are physically weak, slow, and not particularly good at climbing trees. Yet, we are surprisingly good at long-distance running and fast, accurate throwing.

#2 We are a cultural species. We have acquired many practices, techniques, tools, motivations, values, and beliefs while growing up, mostly by learning from others. Our species’ success lies not in our raw innate intelligence, but in our ability to survive and thrive as hunter-gatherers across an immense range of global environments because we have learned how to culture.

#3 We are a cultural species, and our capacities for learning from others are products of natural selection. We are adaptive learners who, even as infants, carefully select when, what, and from whom to learn. We rely on the products of cultural evolution for our survival.

#4 The process of self-domestication involved the creation of social norms that influence a wide variety of human action. Norms affect everything from ancient and fundamental matters such as kin relations and mating to more modern matters such as food sharing and reciprocity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822502130

IRB Media

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Insights on Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Our species, the Homo sapiens, is a peculiar primate. We are physically weak, slow, and not particularly good at climbing trees. Yet, we are surprisingly good at long-distance running and fast, accurate throwing.

#2

We are a cultural species. We have acquired many practices, techniques, tools, motivations, values, and beliefs while growing up, mostly by learning from others. Our species’ success lies not in our raw innate intelligence, but in our ability to survive and thrive as hunter-gatherers across an immense range of global environments because we have learned how to culture.

#3

We are a cultural species, and our capacities for learning from others are products of natural selection. We are adaptive learners who, even as infants, carefully select when, what, and from whom to learn. We rely on the products of cultural evolution for our survival.

#4

The process of self-domestication involved the creation of social norms that influence a wide variety of human action. Norms affect everything from ancient and fundamental matters such as kin relations and mating to more modern matters such as food sharing and reciprocity.

#5

The secret of our species’ success lies in the collective brains of our communities. Our collective brains arise from the synthesis of our cultural and social natures, and they are what allows us to learn from others and live in large groups.

#6

The view that culture has shaped our biology and psychology in ways that make us more self-programmable has led to the development of institutions, values, reputational systems, and technologies over the years.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Humans have altered more than one-third of the earth’s land surface. We cycle more nitrogen than all other terrestrial life forms combined and have now altered the flow of two-thirds of the earth’s rivers.

#2

The most common answer to how and why humans are able to adapt to so many different environments is that we are simply more intelligent. We have big brains with ample cognitive processing power, and we use this to figure out how to solve problems creatively.

#3

The three common explanations for our species’ ecological success are generalized intelligence, specialized mental abilities evolved for survival in the hunter-gatherer environments of our evolutionary past, and cooperative instincts or social intelligence that allows for high levels of cooperation.

#4

Our brains have evolved to acquire, store, organize, and transmit an ever-growing amount of cultural information. We are not as smart as we think we are, and our apparent intelligence comes from the accumulated repertoire of mental tools, skills, concepts, and categories that we inherited culturally from earlier generations.

#5

The only exceptional cognitive abilities possessed by young children in comparison to two other great apes relate to social learning, and not to space, quantities, or causality.

#6

When you have to design a test that is applicable to both humans and apes, the apes inevitably end up near the floor and the humans near the ceiling. Humans are however, prolific, spontaneous, and automatic imitators.

#7

The notion that our success as a species is due to brainpower or better mental processors is challenged by the fact that humans do not have uniformly superior mental abilities compared to other apes. We do well in working memory and information processing speed tests, but not in games of