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Book Description
Why should you suspect someone who has more than 150 friends on Facebook?
Product Description
We are the product of our evolutionary history and this history colours our everyday lives - from why we kiss to how religious we are. In How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Robin Dunbar explains how the distant past underpins our current behaviour, through the groundbreaking experiments that have changed the thinking of evolutionary biologists forever.
He explains phenomena such as why 'Dunbar's Number' (150) is the maximum number of acquaintances you can have, why all babies are born premature and the science behind lonely hearts columns. Stimulating, provocative and highly enjoyable, this fascinating book is essential for understanding why humans behave as they do - what it is to be human.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Answer is "150"--And, for a Change, Not "42", March 7, 2010
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, offers a fascinating collection of essays about the evolution of humans and human society. The answer to the book's title, "How Many Friends Does One Person Need?", is somewhere around 150 (Dunbar's Number). From groups of hunter-gatherers to well-run corporations and armies, the number 150 is a basic (and maximum) building block for human organizations. Groups with fewer than 150 individuals can generally function on a first name basis--members can actually know, to one degree or another, everyone in the group. Groups larger than 150 tend to exceed the capacity of individual members to keep track of social complexity, which means that, like large corporate enterprises, they need heirarchy and management to preserve manageable group structures.
According to Dunbar, the complexity of human society--not tools, or walking upright, or hunting--it the primary force driving the growth of the human brain. Our brains enable us to speak and sing and otherwise communicate with each other without actually touching, so we can groom each other at a distance, so to speak. Because our social interactions don't require one-on-one contact, human groups can be larger than the groups of our primate cousins--but group size still has a limit, which appears to be about 150.
Dunbar's book is very readable and is filled with fascinating tidbits, like the fact that all human infants (even the ones who are carried to a full nine month term) are born premature. For our children to be born at the same level of development as, say, a chimpanzee, the gestation period would need to be about 22 months. Human children are born prematurely and require a great deal of parental care because that it the balance evolution has struck between large brain size, the woman's pelvis, and the woman's ability to walk upright. The relative helplessness of human infants puts an additional premium on pair bonding, communication and group support, thus driving a feedback loop rewarding bigger and more social brains.
Dunbar tackles a number of other intriguing questions about human behavior, including why are we often, but not always, monogomous? From which single conqueror are more than 8.5% of the men in Asia now descended? Why is gossip important? This book is an easy one to pick up and keep at, with each chapter drawing the reader in with yet another insight about the quirks that make us human. I highly recommend this book, along with Dubar's equally fascinating The Human Story.
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, offers a fascinating collection of essays about the evolution of humans and human society. The answer to the book's title, "How Many Friends Does One Person Need?", is somewhere around 150 (Dunbar's Number). From groups of hunter-gatherers to well-run corporations and armies, the number 150 is a basic (and maximum) building block for human organizations. Groups with fewer than 150 individuals can generally function on a first name basis--members can actually know, to one degree or another, everyone in the group. Groups larger than 150 tend to exceed the capacity of individual members to keep track of social complexity, which means that, like large corporate enterprises, they need heirarchy and management to preserve manageable group structures.
According to Dunbar, the complexity of human society--not tools, or walking upright, or hunting--it the primary force driving the growth of the human brain. Our brains enable us to speak and sing and otherwise communicate with each other without actually touching, so we can groom each other at a distance, so to speak. Because our social interactions don't require one-on-one contact, human groups can be larger than the groups of our primate cousins--but group size still has a limit, which appears to be about 150.
Dunbar's book is very readable and is filled with fascinating tidbits, like the fact that all human infants (even the ones who are carried to a full nine month term) are born premature. For our children to be born at the same level of development as, say, a chimpanzee, the gestation period would need to be about 22 months. Human children are born prematurely and require a great deal of parental care because that it the balance evolution has struck between large brain size, the woman's pelvis, and the woman's ability to walk upright. The relative helplessness of human infants puts an additional premium on pair bonding, communication and group support, thus driving a feedback loop rewarding bigger and more social brains.
Dunbar tackles a number of other intriguing questions about human behavior, including why are we often, but not always, monogomous? From which single conqueror are more than 8.5% of the men in Asia now descended? Why is gossip important? This book is an easy one to pick up and keep at, with each chapter drawing the reader in with yet another insight about the quirks that make us human. I highly recommend this book, along with Dubar's equally fascinating The Human Story.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Dunbar makes the complex simple and illuminates with every sentence. This is not an academic treatise - and yet it is. Stuffed with fascinating detail about why we natter. I bought all of Dunbar's books on Amazon and they are all excellent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
We are the the product of our evolutionary history, according to professor (of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University) Robin Dunbar. According to Dunbar, the evidence is everywhere: From the way we socially interact (Grooming, laughter, music and language), to the way our minds are actually build and onwards to the way our minds are capable of reflecting about the world. There is an evolutionary hand in it everywhere. The book is a delightful and fascinating read, sharing insights from many fields, but always with a focus on evolutionary biology.
Sections about grooming are especially good. Indeed, grooming is not just about removing fleas. It is about intimacy, it creates a sense of wellbeing and relaxed connectedness. It has to do with endorphins. Laughter, music and language are all forms of grooming, even though they might have other purposes as well. It is all about what makes us work as individuals and as groups.
Our big brains are necessary for these more advanced forms of grooming. And the grooming makes it possible to build even bigger brains. All in just in a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
An exciting book about an exciting subject.
-Simon
Sections about grooming are especially good. Indeed, grooming is not just about removing fleas. It is about intimacy, it creates a sense of wellbeing and relaxed connectedness. It has to do with endorphins. Laughter, music and language are all forms of grooming, even though they might have other purposes as well. It is all about what makes us work as individuals and as groups.
Our big brains are necessary for these more advanced forms of grooming. And the grooming makes it possible to build even bigger brains. All in just in a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.
An exciting book about an exciting subject.
-Simon
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A fascinating read
Robin Dunbar is to anthropology what Brian Cox is to physics. He has an entertaining and thought provoking way of explaining why we are as we are. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Robert Ashton
McMillan
Written so the layman can understand a complex subject, Robin also has a sense of humour, a trait not often found in authors of such serious subjects!
Published on 31 May 2010 by C. M. Mcmillan
fun but too egocentric
Dunbar writes well and he has very strong opinions, or let's say claims about the certainty of his results. Read more
Published on 13 April 2010 by Jippu
Listmania!
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