29 Best Evolution Books
Evolution is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Evolution audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 29 Evolution audiobooks below.
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The Theft of America’s Heritage
- By: Russ Miller
- Narrator: Claton Butcher
- Length: 4 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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5(1 ratings)
5(1 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.95 USDThere is a war raging across America. The country’s heritage is already a victim. They want to destroy all evidence that predominantly Christian men founded the United States on predominantly Christian principles. Now they’re out toThere is a war raging across America. The country’s heritage is already a victim. They want to destroy all evidence that predominantly Christian men founded the United States on predominantly Christian principles. Now they’re out to destroy the foundations that traditional United States freedoms are based upon. Is it too late to stem the tide?
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The Ends of the World
- By: Peter Brannen
- Narrator: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hours 57 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 13, 2017
- Language: English
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4.3(2634 ratings)
4.3(2634 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.005.99 USDAs new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s fiveAs new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future.
Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.
Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record–which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish–and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.
Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.
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The Dawn of Everything
- By: David Graeber
- Narrator: Mark Williams
- Length: 24 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: November 09, 2021
- Language: English
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4.21(8456 ratings)
- NYT Best Sellers
4.21(8456 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0044.99 USD“An all-encompassing treatise on modern civilization, offering bold revisions to canonical understandings in sociology, anthropology, archaeology and political philosophy that led to where we are today.” – The New York Times A“An all-encompassing treatise on modern civilization, offering bold revisions to canonical understandings in sociology, anthropology, archaeology and political philosophy that led to where we are today.” – The New York Times
A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution–from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality–and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.
For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike–either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
- By: Steve Brusatte
- Narrator: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: April 24, 2018
- Language: English
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4.18(1052 ratings)
4.18(1052 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDA sweeping and revelatory new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists. “THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY.” — Scientific American The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s mostA sweeping and revelatory new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists.
“THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY.” — Scientific American
The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before.
In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field–naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork–masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.
Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers–themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period–into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.”
Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research–which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”–and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.
An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.
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Darwin’s House of Cards
- By: Tom Bethell
- Narrator: Matthew McAuliffe
- Length: 8 hours 58 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.16(87 ratings)
4.16(87 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDIn this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a nineteenth-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence thatIn this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a nineteenth-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence that is all but disintegrating under an onslaught of new scientific discoveries. Bethell presents a concise yet wide-ranging tour of the flash points of modern evolutionary theory, investigating controversies over common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, biogeography, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and the growing intelligent design movement.
Bethell’s account is enriched by his own personal encounters with some of our era’s leading scientists and thinkers, including Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin; British paleontologist Colin Patterson; and renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper.
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Survival of the Sickest
- By: Sharon Moalem
- Narrator: Eric Conger
- Length: 6 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 06, 2007
- Language: English
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4.15(6887 ratings)
4.15(6887 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDHow did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Was diabetes evolution’s response to the last Ice Age? Will a visit to the tanning salon help bring down your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are someHow did a deadly genetic disease help our ancestors survive the bubonic plagues of Europe? Was diabetes evolution’s response to the last Ice Age? Will a visit to the tanning salon help bring down your cholesterol? Why do we age? Why are some people immune to HIV? Can your genes be turned on–or off?
Survival of the Sickest reveals the answers to these and many other questions as it unravels the amazing connections between evolution, disease, and human health today.
Joining the ranks of modern myth busters, Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current understanding of illness on its head and challenges us to fundamentally change the way we think about our bodies, our health, and our relationship to just about every other living thing on earth, from plants and animals to insects and bacteria.
Survival of the Sickest is filled with fascinating insights and cutting-edge research, presented in a way that is both accessible and utterly absorbing. This is a book about the interconnectedness of all life on earth–and, especially, what that means for us.
Read it. You’re already living it.
Read by Eric Conger
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The Sediments Of Time
- By: Meave Leakey
- Narrator: Susan Lyons
- Length: 14 hours 35 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: November 10, 2020
- Language: English
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4.14(264 ratings)
4.14(264 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.007.99 USD“Extraordinary . . . This inspirational autobiography stands among the finest scientist memoirs.” ‚ÄîNew York Times Book Review, Editors’ ChoiceMeave Leakey‚Äôs thrilling, high-stakes memoir‚Äîwritten with her daughter“Extraordinary . . . This inspirational autobiography stands among the finest scientist memoirs.”
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‚ÄîNew York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
Meave Leakey’s thrilling, high-stakes memoir—written with her daughter Samira—encapsulates her distinguished life and career on the front lines of the hunt for our human origins, a quest made all the more notable by her stature as a woman in a highly competitive, male-dominated field.
In The Sediments of Time, preeminent paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey brings us along on her remarkable journey to reveal the diversity of our early pre-human ancestors and how past climate change drove their evolution. She offers a fresh account of our past, as recent breakthroughs have allowed new analysis of her team’s fossil findings and vastly expanded our understanding of our ancestors.
 
Meave’s own personal story is replete with drama, from thrilling discoveries on the shores of Lake Turkana to run-ins with armed herders and every manner of wildlife, to raising her children and supporting her renowned paleoanthropologist husband Richard Leakey’s ambitions amidst social and political strife in Kenya. When Richard needs a kidney, Meave provides him with hers, and when he asks her to assume the reins of their field expeditions after he loses both legs in a plane crash, the result of likely sabotage, Meave steps in. 
 
The Sediments of Time is the summation of a lifetime of Meave Leakey’s efforts; it is a compelling picture of our human origins and climate change, as well as a high-stakes story of ambition, struggle, and hope.
“A fascinating glimpse into our origins. Meave Leakey is a great storyteller, and she presents new information about the far off time when we emerged from our ape-like ancestors to start the long journey that has led to our becoming the dominant species on Earth. That story, woven into her own journey of research and discovery, gives us a book that is informative and captivating, one that you will not forget.”
—Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute -
The Red Queen
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrator: Simon Prebble
- Length: 12 hours 52 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 18, 2011
- Language: English
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4.05(15328 ratings)
4.05(15328 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USD“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” (Wall Street Journal) from the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Genome Brilliantly written, The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything“A terrific book, witty and lucid, and brimming with provocative conjectures.” (Wall Street Journal) from the author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Genome
Brilliantly written, The Red Queen compels us to rethink everything from the persistence of sexism to the endurance of romantic love.
Referring to Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity’s best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture–including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband. The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.
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The Magic of Reality
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrator: Richard Dawkins
- Length: 6 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2011
- Language: English
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4.05(19967 ratings)
4.05(19967 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.95 USDAn elegant, text-only paperback edition of the New York Times bestseller that’s been hailed as the definitive authority on…everything.Richard Dawkins, bestselling author and the world’s most celebrated evolutionary biologist, hasAn elegant, text-only paperback edition of the New York Times bestseller that’s been hailed as the definitive authority on…everything.
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Richard Dawkins, bestselling author and the world’s most celebrated evolutionary biologist, has spent his career elucidating the many wonders of science. Here, he takes a broader approach and uses his unrivaled explanatory powers to illuminate the ways in which the world really works.
Filled with clever thought experiments and jaw-dropping facts, The Magic of Reality explains a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena: How old is the universe? Why do the continents look like disconnected pieces of a jigsaw puzzle? What causes tsunamis? Why are there so many kinds of plants and animals? Who was the first man, or woman?
Starting with the magical, mythical explanations for the wonders of nature, Dawkins reveals the exhilarating scientific truths behind these occurrences. This is a page-turning detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist as well. -
Genome
- By: Matt Ridley
- Narrator: Simon Prebble
- Length: 12 hours 20 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: January 18, 2011
- Language: English
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4.05(23267 ratings)
4.05(23267 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USD“Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical“Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. . . . . He addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the reductionist danger in equating inheritability with inevitability.” — The New Yorker
The genome’s been mapped. But what does it mean? Matt Ridley’s Genome is the book that explains it all: what it is, how it works, and what it portends for the future
Arguably the most significant scientific discovery of the new century, the mapping of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genome raises almost as many questions as it answers. Questions that will profoundly impact the way we think about disease, about longevity, and about free will. Questions that will affect the rest of your life.
Genome offers extraordinary insight into the ramifications of this incredible breakthrough. By picking one newly discovered gene from each pair of chromosomes and telling its story, Matt Ridley recounts the history of our species and its ancestors from the dawn of life to the brink of future medicine. From Huntington’s disease to cancer, from the applications of gene therapy to the horrors of eugenics, Ridley probes the scientific, philosophical, and moral issues arising as a result of the mapping of the genome. It will help you understand what this scientific milestone means for you, for your children, and for humankind.
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Evolutionary Biology, Part 1
- By: Allen MacNeill
- Narrator: Allen MacNeill
- Length: 7 hours 46 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: August 12, 2011
- Language: English
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4.04(27 ratings)
4.04(27 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDWith Evolutionary Psychology I and II, Allen D. MacNeill of Cornell University led a thought-provoking series of lectures on why people do the things they do. In Evolutionary Biology I, MacNeill addresses a different side of the coin by examiningWith Evolutionary Psychology I and II, Allen D. MacNeill of Cornell University led a thought-provoking series of lectures on why people do the things they do. In Evolutionary Biology I, MacNeill addresses a different side of the coin by examining the biological component, from Charles Darwin’s and Gregor Mendel’s “dangerous ideas” to contemporary thought leaders and the forming of the modern synthesis of this vital field of study.
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Evolution
- By: Michael Denton
- Narrator: John McLain
- Length: 11 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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4.04(213 ratings)
4.04(213 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDMore than thirty years after his landmark book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), biologist Michael Denton revisits his earlier thesis about the inability of Darwinian evolution to explain the history of life. He argues that there remainsMore than thirty years after his landmark book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), biologist Michael Denton revisits his earlier thesis about the inability of Darwinian evolution to explain the history of life. He argues that there remains “an irresistible consilience of evidence for rejecting Darwinian cumulative selection as the major driving force of evolution.” From the origin of life to the origin of human language, the great divisions in the natural order are still as profound as ever, and they are still unsupported by the series of adaptive transitional forms predicted by Darwin. In addition, Denton makes a provocative new argument about the pervasiveness of nonadaptive order throughout biology, order that cannot be explained by the Darwinian mechanism.
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What Evolution Is
- By: Ernst Mayr
- Narrator: Ernst Mayr
- Length: 11 hours 39 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: February 08, 2019
- Language: English
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4.02(3536 ratings)
4.02(3536 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDAt once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant primer on evolution for the general reader, What Evolution Is poses the questions at the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding ofAt once a spirited defense of Darwinian explanations of biology and an elegant
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primer on evolution for the general reader, What Evolution Is poses the questions at
the heart of evolutionary theory and considers how our improved understanding of
evolution has affected the viewpoints and values of modern man -
A Natural History of the Future
- By: Rob Dunn
- Narrator: Donald Chang
- Length: 8 hours 40 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 09, 2021
- Language: English
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4(445 ratings)
4(445 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDA leading ecologist argues that if humankind is to survive on a fragile planet, we must understand and obey its iron lawsOur species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend theA leading ecologist argues that if humankind is to survive on a fragile planet, we must understand and obey its iron laws
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Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul. When we create artificial islands of crops, dump toxic waste, or build communities, we provide new materials for old laws to shape. Life’s future flourishing is not in question. Ours is.
As ambitious as Edward Wilson’s Sociobiology and as timely as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, A Natural History of the Future sets a new standard for understanding the diversity and destiny of life itself. -
Dog Is Love
- By: Clive D. L. Wynne
- Narrator: James Langton
- Length: 5 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 24, 2019
- Language: English
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3.99(791 ratings)
3.99(791 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USD‚ÄúLively and fascinating… The reader comes away cheered,¬†better informed, and with a new and deeper appreciation for our amazing canine companions and their enormous capacity for love.‚Äù‚ÄîCat Warren,¬†New York‚ÄúLively and fascinating… The reader comes away cheered,¬†better informed, and with a new and deeper appreciation for our amazing canine companions and their enormous capacity for love.‚Äù‚ÄîCat Warren,¬†New York Times¬†best-selling author of What the Dog Knows¬†
Does your dog love you?
Every dog lover knows the feeling. The nuzzle of a dog’s nose, the warmth of them lying at our feet, even their whining when they want to get up on the bed. It really seems like our dogs love us, too. But for years, scientists have resisted that conclusion, warning against anthropomorphizing our pets. Enter Clive Wynne, a pioneering canine behaviorist whose research is helping to usher in a new era: one in which love, not intelligence or submissiveness, is at the heart of the human-canine relationship. Drawing on cutting-edge studies from his lab and others around the world, Wynne shows that affection is the very essence of dogs, from their faces and tails to their brains, hormones, even DNA. This scientific revolution is revealing more about dogs’ unique origins, behavior, needs, and hidden depths than we ever imagined possible.
A humane, illuminating book, Dog Is Love is essential reading for anyone who has ever loved a dog—and experienced the wonder of being loved back.
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The Reluctant Mr. Darwin
- By: David Quammen
- Narrator: Grover Gardner
- Length: 7 hours 46 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2007
- Language: English
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3.96(1645 ratings)
3.96(1645 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.95 USDIn September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that natural selection among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publicationIn September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that natural selection among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of On the Origin of Species. The human drama and scientific basis of that time constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that illuminates this cautious naturalist who sparked an intellectual revolution. Drawing from Darwin’s secret notebooks and personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work remains controversial today.
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How the Mind Changed
- By: Joseph Jebelli
- Narrator: Joe Eyre
- Length: 8 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: July 12, 2022
- Language: English
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3.93(61 ratings)
3.93(61 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDThe extraordinary story of how the human brain evolved… and is still evolving. We’ve come a long way. The earliest human had a brain as small as a child’s fist; ours are four times bigger, with spectacular abilities and potentialThe extraordinary story of how the human brain evolved… and is still evolving.
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We’ve come a long way. The earliest human had a brain as small as a child’s fist; ours are four times bigger, with spectacular abilities and potential we are only just beginning to understand.
This is How the Mind Changed, a seven-million-year journey through our own heads, packed with vivid stories, groundbreaking science, and thrilling surprises. Discover how memory has almost nothing to do with the past; meditation rewires our synapses; magic mushroom use might be responsible for our intelligence; climate accounts for linguistic diversity; and how autism teaches us hugely positive lessons about our past and future.
Dr. Joseph Jebelli’s In Pursuit of Memory was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and longlisted for the Wellcome. In this, his eagerly awaited second book, he draws on deep insights from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy to guide us through the unexpected changes that shaped our brains. From genetic accidents and environmental forces to historical and cultural advances, he explores how our brain’s evolution turned us into Homo sapiens and beyond.
A single mutation is all it takes. -
Gender Mosaic
- By: Daphna Joel
- Narrator: Therese Plummer
- Length: 4 hours 0 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 17, 2019
- Language: English
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3.85(273 ratings)
3.85(273 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.98 USDWith profound implications for our most foundational assumptions about gender, Gender Mosaic explains why there is no such thing as a male or female brain.For generations, we’ve been taught that women and men differ in profound and importantWith profound implications for our most foundational assumptions about gender, Gender Mosaic explains why there is no such thing as a male or female brain.... Read moreFor generations, we’ve been taught that women and men differ in profound and important ways. Women are more sensitive and emotional, whereas men are more aggressive and sexual, because this or that region in the brains of women is smaller or larger than in men, or because they have more or less of this or that hormone. This story seems to provide us with a neat biological explanation for much of what we encounter in day-to-day life. But is it true?According to neuroscientist Daphna Joel, it’s not. And in Gender Mosaic, she sets forth a bold and compelling argument that debunks the notion of female and male brains. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, including the groundbreaking results of her own studies, Dr. Joel explains that every human brain is a unique mixture — or mosaic — of “male” and “female” features, and that these mosaics don’t map neatly into two categories.With urgent practical implications for the way we understand ourselves and the world around us, Gender Mosaic is a fascinating look at the science of gender, sex and the brain, and at how freeing ourselves from the gender binary can help us all reach our full human potential. -
The Language of Butterflies
- By: Wendy Williams
- Narrator: Angela Brazil
- Length: 8 hours 38 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.83(726 ratings)
3.83(726 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDIn this “deeply personal and lyrical book” (Publishers Weekly) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Horse, Wendy Williams explores the lives of one of the world’s most resilient creatures–theIn this “deeply personal and lyrical book” (Publishers Weekly) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Horse, Wendy Williams explores the lives of one of the world’s most resilient creatures–the butterfly–shedding light on the role that they play in our ecosystem and in our human lives.
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“[A] glorious and exuberant celebration of these biological flying machines…Williams takes us on a humorous and beautifully crafted journey” (The Washington Post). From butterfly gardens to zoo exhibits, these “flying flowers” are one of the few insects we’ve encouraged to infiltrate our lives. Yet, what has drawn us to these creatures in the first place? And what are their lives really like? In this “entertaining look at ‘the world’s favorite insect'” (Booklist, starred review), New York Times bestselling author and science journalist Wendy Williams reveals the inner lives of these delicate creatures, who are far more intelligent and tougher than we give them credit for.
Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles each year from Canada to Mexico. Other species have learned how to fool ants into taking care of them. Butterflies’ scales are inspiring researchers to create new life-saving medical technology. Williams takes readers to butterfly habitats across the globe and introduces us to not only various species, but “digs deeply into the lives of both butterflies and [the] scientists” (Science magazine) who have spent decades studying them.
Coupled with years of research and knowledge gained from experts in the field, this accessible “butterfly biography” explores the ancient partnership between these special creatures and humans, and why they continue to fascinate us today. “Informative, thought-provoking,” (BookPage, starred review) and extremely profound, The Language of Butterflies is a “fascinating book [that] will be of interest to anyone who has ever admired a butterfly, and anyone who cares about preserving these stunning creatures” (Library Journal). -
A Better Ape
- By: Victor Kumar
- Length: 11 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: May 24, 2022
- Language: English
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3.8(15 ratings)
3.8(15 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0024.99 USDHumans are moral creatures. Among all life on Earth, we alone experience rich moral emotions, follow complex rules governing how we treat one another, and engage in moral dialogue. But how did human morality evolve? And can humans become morallyHumans are moral creatures.
Among all life on Earth, we alone experience rich moral emotions, follow complex rules governing how we treat one another, and engage in moral dialogue. But how did human morality evolve? And can humans become morally evolved?In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell draw on the latest research in the biological and social sciences to explain the key role that morality has played in human evolution. They explore the moral traits that humans share with
chimpanzees, how a more complex moral mind enabled Homo sapiens to arise and outcompete other human species, and the place of morality alongside historic revolutions in technology and social organization. Throughout the book, Kumar
and Campbell argue that morality co-evolved with intelligence and complex sociality. Morality prevents societal collapse and enables complex knowledge.After unearthing the ancient origins of human morality, Kumar and Campbell use evolutionary theory to deliver profound insights about how to advance moral progress and resist moral regress, such as reducing animal suffering on industrial
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farms; capitalizing on the recent revolution in gay rights to foster a nascent revolution in transgender rights; opposing intersectional inequality that impacts women and people of color in lower socioeconomic classes; and addressing major
problems of global inequality, especially impending crises of injustice caused by anthropogenic climate change. Understanding how we evolved–and how we continue to evolve–can help us become a better ape. -
Darwin, Darwinism, and the Modern World
- By: Chandak Sengoopta
- Narrator: Chandak Sengoopta
- Length: 7 hours 18 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: October 03, 2008
- Language: English
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3.76(32 ratings)
3.76(32 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDThe history of Western civilization can be divided neatly into pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods. Darwin’s 1859 treatise, On the Origin of Species, was not the first work to propose that organisms had descended from other, earlierThe history of Western civilization can be divided neatly into pre-Darwinian and post-Darwinian periods. Darwin’s 1859 treatise, On the Origin of Species, was not the first work to propose that organisms had descended from other, earlier organisms, and the mechanism of evolution it proposed remained controversial for years. Nevertheless, no biologist after 1859 could ignore Darwin’s theories, and few areas of thought and culture remained immune to their influence. Darwinism was attacked, defended, debated, modified, ridiculed, championed, interpreted, and used not only by biologists but also by philosophers, priests, sociologists, warmongers, cartoonists, robber-barons, psychologists, novelists, and politicians of arious stripes. This course will introduce the major themes of Darwin’s works and explore their diverse, often contradictory impacts on science and society from 1859 to the present.
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When Humans Nearly Vanished
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrator: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hours 47 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: October 16, 2018
- Language: English
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3.74(206 ratings)
3.74(206 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDSome 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in today’s Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun’sSome 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in today’s Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun’s radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide. Human genes today show evidence of a “genetic bottleneck,” an effect seen when a population of organisms becomes so small that their genetic diversity is greatly reduced. This group of survivors could be the ancestors of all humans alive today. Prothero explores the geological and biological evidence supporting the Toba bottleneck theory, revealing how the explosion itself was discovered and offering insight into how the world changed afterward and what might happen if such an eruption occurred today.
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Evolution
- By: Scientific American
- Narrator: Kate Mulligan
- Length: 7 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.74(23 ratings)
3.74(23 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDThe complex story of human evolution is a tale seven million years in the making. Each new discovery adds to or revises our story and our understanding of how we came to be the way we are. In this audiobook, The Human Odyssey, we explore theThe complex story of human evolution is a tale seven million years in the making. Each new discovery adds to or revises our story and our understanding of how we came to be the way we are.
In this audiobook, The Human Odyssey, we explore the evolution of those characteristics that make us human. The first section looks at our family tree and why some branches survived and not others. Swings in climate are emerging as a factor in what traits succeeded and failed; meanwhile, DNA analyses show that Homo sapiens interbred with other human species, which played a key role in our survival. Section two examines those traits that separate us from other primates. Recent data indicate that our hairless skin was important to the rise of other human features, and other research is getting closer to illuminating how humans became monogamous. In the final section we speculate on the future of human evolution in a world where advances in technology, medicine, and other areas protect us from harmful factors like disease, causing some scientists to claim that humans are no longer subject to natural selection and our evolution has ceased. But, like us, our story will continue to evolve.
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Why is Sex Fun?
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrator: Jared Diamond
- Length: 5 hours 19 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: June 08, 2018
- Language: English
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3.71(5433 ratings)
3.71(5433 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0015.99 USDTo us humans the sex lives of many animals seem weird. In fact, by comparison with all the other animals, we are the ones with the weird sex lives. How did that come to be?Just count our bizarre ways. We are the only social species to insist onTo us humans the sex lives of many animals seem weird. In fact, by comparison with all the other animals, we are the ones with the weird sex lives. How did that come to be?Just count our bizarre ways. We are the only social species to insist on carrying out sex privately. Stranger yet, we have sex at any time, even when the female can’t be fertilized (for example, because she is already pregnant, post-menopausal, or between fertile cycles). A human female doesn’t know her precise time of fertility and certainly doesn’t advertise it to human males by the striking color changes, smells, and sounds used by other female mammals.Why do we differ so radically in these and other important aspects of our sexuality from our closest ancestor, the apes? Why does the human female, virtually alone among mammals go through menopause? Why does the human male stand out as one of the few mammals to stay (often or usually) with the female he impregnates, to help raise the children that he sired? Why is the human penis so unnecessarily large?There is no one better qualified than Jared Diamond-renowned expert in the fields of physiology and evolutionary biology and award-winning author-to explain the evolutionary forces that operated on our ancestors to make us sexually different. With wit and a wealth of fascinating examples, he explains how our sexuality has been as crucial as our large brains and upright posture in our rise to human status.
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A Human History of Emotion
- By: Richard Firth-Godbehere
- Narrator: Richard Firth-Godbehere
- Length: 11 hours 37 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 16, 2021
- Language: English
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3.71(155 ratings)
3.71(155 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDA sweeping exploration of the ways in which emotions shaped the course of human history, and how our experience and understanding of emotions have evolved along with us. We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species,A sweeping exploration of the ways in which emotions shaped the course of human history, and how our experience and understanding of emotions have evolved along with us.
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We humans like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, who, as a species, have relied on calculation and intellect to survive. But many of the most important moments in our history had little to do with cold, hard facts and a lot to do with feelings. Events ranging from the origins of philosophy to the birth of the world’s major religions, the fall of Rome, the Scientific Revolution, and some of the bloodiest wars that humanity has ever experienced can’t be properly understood without understanding emotions.
In A Human History of Emotion, Richard Firth-Godbehere takes readers on a fascinating and wide ranging tour of the central and often under-appreciated role emotions have played in human societies around the world and throughout history–from Ancient Greece to Gambia, Japan, the Ottoman Empire, the United States, and beyond.
Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, art, and religious history, A Human History of Emotion vividly illustrates how our understanding and experience of emotions has changed over time, and how our beliefs about feelings–and our feelings themselves–profoundly shaped us and the world we inhabit. -
Evolution vs. Creationism
- By: Scientific American
- Narrator: Suzie Althens
- Length: 6 hours 24 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2021
- Language: English
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3.65(37 ratings)
3.65(37 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0016.95 USDCharles Robert Darwin’s 1859 landmark book On the Origin of Species introduced the theory of biological evolution to the masses and kicked off a controversy of ideas that persists to this day. Darwin knew he would face religious opposition toCharles Robert Darwin’s 1859 landmark book On the Origin of Species introduced the theory of biological evolution to the masses and kicked off a controversy of ideas that persists to this day.
Darwin knew he would face religious opposition to a theory of creation that differed from the story in Genesis, but he probably didn’t imagine how long that opposition would last. More than 150 years after Origin, the fight over teaching evolution rages on.
Creationists, or those who hold the belief that the universe and all life was made by divine creator, have tried to use a myriad of tactics either to ban the teaching of evolution entirely or to have creationism and intelligent design taught alongside one another in public schools. In Evolution vs. Creationism, we take a close look at the rise of Darwinism, the arguments and opposition by the creationist movement, whether faith and science can coexist, and what could happen if the US continues on an antiscience trajectory.
With this book, we went from deep in our archives to current events to examine the revolutionary impact of Darwin’s theory and the controversy that continues today.
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Denial
- By: Ajit Varki
- Narrator: Bob Walter
- Length: 10 hours 17 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: June 04, 2013
- Language: English
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3.55(223 ratings)
3.55(223 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0014.98 USDThe history of science abounds with momentous theories that disrupted conventional wisdom and yet were eventually proven true. Ajit Varki and Danny Brower’s “Mind over Reality” theory is poised to be one such idea-a concept thatThe history of science abounds with momentous theories that disrupted conventional wisdom and yet were eventually proven true. Ajit Varki and Danny Brower’s “Mind over Reality” theory is poised to be one such idea-a concept that runs counter to commonly-held notions about human evolution but that may hold the key to understanding why humans evolved as we did, leaving all other related species far behind.... Read moreAt a chance meeting in 2005, Brower, a geneticist, posed an unusual idea to Varki that he believed could explain the origins of human uniqueness among the world’s species: Why is there no humanlike elephant or humanlike dolphin, despite millions of years of evolutionary opportunity? Why is it that humans alone can understand the minds of others?
Haunted by their encounter, Varki tried years later to contact Brower only to discover that he had died unexpectedly. Inspired by an incomplete manuscript Brower left behind, Denial presents a radical new theory on the origins of our species. It was not, the authors argue, a biological leap that set humanity apart from other species, but a psychological one: namely, the uniquely human ability to deny reality in the face of inarguable evidence-including the willful ignorance of our own inevitable deaths.
The awareness of our own mortality could have caused anxieties that resulted in our avoiding the risks of competing to procreate-an evolutionary dead-end. Humans therefore needed to evolve a mechanism for overcoming this hurdle: the denial of reality.
As a consequence of this evolutionary quirk we now deny any aspects of reality that are not to our liking-we smoke cigarettes, eat unhealthy foods, and avoid exercise, knowing these habits are a prescription for an early death. And so what has worked to establish our species could be our undoing if we continue to deny the consequences of unrealistic approaches to everything from personal health to financial risk-taking to climate change. On the other hand reality-denial affords us many valuable attributes, such as optimism, confidence, and courage in the face of long odds.
Presented in homage to Brower’s original thinking, Denial offers a powerful warning about the dangers inherent in our remarkable ability to ignore reality-a gift that will either lead to our downfall, or continue to be our greatest asset.
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The Price of Immortality
- By: Peter Ward
- Narrator: Alex Boyles
- Length: 8 hours 50 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2022
- Language: English
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3.45(41 ratings)
3.45(41 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDAn absorbing and revelatory journey into the American Way of defying death As longevity medicine revolutionizes the lives of many older people, the quest to take the next step–to live as long as we choose–has spurred a scientific armsAn absorbing and revelatory journey into the American Way of defying death
As longevity medicine revolutionizes the lives of many older people, the quest to take the next step–to live as long as we choose–has spurred a scientific arms race in search of the elixir of life, funded by Big Tech and Silicon Valley.
Once the stuff of Mesopotamian mythology and episodes of Star Trek, the effort to make humans immortal is becoming increasingly credible as the pace of technological progress quickens. It has also empowered a wild-eyed fringe of pseudo-scientists, tech visionaries, scam artists, and religious fanatics who have given their lives over to the pursuit of immortality.
Starting off at the Church of Perpetual Life in Florida and exploring the feuding subcultures around the cryonics industry, Peter Ward immerses himself into an eccentric world of startups, scam artists, scientific institutions, and tech billionaires to deliver this deeply reported, nuanced, and sometimes very funny exploration of the race for immortality–and the potentially devastating consequences should humanity realize its ultimate dream.
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Comportate (Behave)
- By: Robert M. Sapolsky
- Length: 45 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: BookaVivo
- Publish date: October 19, 2021
- Language: Spanish
Regular Price:Try for $0.0039.99 USDUn examen minucioso del comportamiento humano y una respuesta a la pregunta: ?por que hacemos las cosas que hacemos? Sapolsky analiza los factores en juego, desde el momento previo hasta los factores arraigados en la historia de nuestra especie y suUn examen minucioso del comportamiento humano y una respuesta a la pregunta: ?por que hacemos las cosas que hacemos? Sapolsky analiza los factores en juego, desde el momento previo hasta los factores arraigados en la historia de nuestra especie y su legado evolutivo. Partiendo de una explicacion neurobiologica –?que sucedio en el cerebro de una persona un segundo antes de que se comportara asi?, ?que vision, sonido u olor hicieron que el sistema nervioso produjera ese comportamiento?–, pasamos a pensar en el mundo sensorial y la endocrinologia: ?como fue influenciado ese comportamiento por cambios estructurales en el sistema nervioso durante los meses anteriores, por la adolescencia, la infancia y la vida fetal de esa persona, e incluso por su composicion genetica? Y, mas alla del individuo, ?como dio forma la cultura al grupo de ese individuo, que factores ecologicos milenarios formaron esa cultura? El resultado es uno de los recorridos mas deslumbrantes de la ciencia del comportamiento humano jamas propuestos, que puede responder a muchas preguntas profundas y espinosas sobre el tribalismo y la xenofobia, la jerarquia, la competencia, la moral y el libre albedrio, la guerra y la paz.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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