Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implications [Hardcover]

Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implicationsexamines the concept of human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Its starting point is the observation that no mammal comes close to Homo sapiens' population size, geographical range, and domination of ecological systems. How did we arrive at this point? What does it mean moving forward? This volume explores the causes of our evolutionary success, how we can grapple with excessive success in a world impacted by climate change, and what our success means for the future of our species.Human Success: Evolutionary Origins and Ethical Implicationsexamines human success from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, with contributions from leading paleobiologists, anthropologists, geologists, philosophers of science, and ethicists. It considers how the human species grew in success-linked metrics, such as population size and geographical range, and how it came to dominate ecological systems across the globe. It probes whether the consequences of that dominance, such as human-driven climate change and the destruction of biodiversity, mandate a rethinking of the meaning of human success. The essays in this book urge us to reflect on what has led to our apparent evolutionary successand, most importantly, what this success implies for the future of our species.Editor and Contributor Biographies1. Introduction: The Manifold Challenges to Understanding Human SuccessHugh Desmond and Grant RamseyPart I: What is Evolutionary Success?2. Evolutionary Success: Standards of ValueDan McShea3. Human Success: A Contextual and Pluralistic ViewMarion Hourdequin4. Human success as a complex of autonomy, adaptation, and niche constructionBernd RosslenbroichPart II: Explaining Human Success5. The Origin and Evolution of Human UniquenessGeerat Vermeij6. Wanderlust: A View from Deep Time of Dispersal, Persistence, and HumanlÃ