For Whose Benefit?: The Biological and Cultural Evolution of Human Cooperation [Hardcover]

This book takes the reader on a journey, navigating the enigmatic aspects of cooperation; a journey that starts inside the body and continues via our thoughts to the human super-organism.

Cooperation is one of lifes fundamental principles. We are all made of parts  genes, cells, organs, neurons, but also of ideas, or memes. Our societies too are made of parts  us humans. Is all this cooperation fundamentally the same process?

From the smallest component parts of our bodies and minds to our complicated societies, everywhere cooperation is the organizing principle. Often this cooperation has emerged because the constituting parts have benefited from the interactions, but not seldom the cooperating units appear to lose on the interaction. How then to explain cooperation? How can we understand our intricate societies where we regularly provide small and large favors for people we are unrelated to, know, or even never expect to meet again? Where does the idea come fromthat it is right to risk ones life for country, religion or freedom? The answers seem to reside in the two processes that have shaped humanity: biological and cultural evolution.

The Human Puzzle.- Your physical self.- Your psychological selfEasily explicable cooperation and natural selection.- Family.- Friends.- Humanity  the paragon of cooperation.- Language.- The last piece of the puzzle?  Cooperation over our heads.- Epilogue: The human super organism.

For whose benefit? provides insights on human evolution and evolutionary biology. After reading this book, the reader will acquire a vast and general information about evolution. The audience of this book includes general readers or students interested in biology, evolution and basics of cooperation. & the book is an active evaluative discussion of the related ideas and concepts. (Farid Pazhoohi, El$