Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene

By Walter Goldschmidt

Book Overview

The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene explores the relationship of biology and culture in the evolution of human behavior. Building upon several of the theoretical issues he first addressed in Man's Way, renowned anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt presents a unique look at how human culture functions through biological mechanisms that have evolved from our distant past.

"Affect hunger"--the need for affective expressions from others--underlies nurturance and mutuality. Goldschmidt contends that affect hunger--in combination with other factors unique to the human species--in effect "trumps" the selfish gene and is therefore the essential missing key to understanding human behavior. Employing discussions of primate behavior, ethnographies, cognitive studies, psychological research, and hormonal and neurological studies, he demonstrates how affect hunger not only provides a reward system for learning language and other cultural information, but also remains a motive for social behavior throughout life. Transforming the debate on nature versus culture to one on nature and culture, The Bridge to Humanity provides a fresh perspective on the ways that biology and culture fit together. Indeed, in this book Goldschmidt reinterprets anthropological knowledge, profoundly affecting all students concerned with human behavior and reaching far beyond the discipline's borders.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195179668
• ISBN13: 9780195179668
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.1" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

An excellent meta-view of human evolution

In this book, Goldschmidt, an emeritus anthropologist, pulls together several strands of scientific work on genetics and cognition into a view of human evolution that provides some deep insights into what makes us human. One of the primary insights that he builds on is the recent discovery of mirror neurons, which allow us to learn through observation. Goldschmidt's idea that the evolution of language and tool making are related is also a valuable one. But most important is his overarching idea that affect hunger is the source of culture; that it is a biological need, yet one that connects us with others, and therefore encourages the cooperation and empathy that makes culture and civilzation possible.