Up From Dragons - Criticisms

Criticisms

• Fails to link with earlier work upon “cognitive ergonomics”.p. 143
• The description of the prefrontal cortex “begs for more commentary on their likely causes, consequences, and context”.p. 143
• Fails to discuss helping behavior before “primate or even mammalian sociality emerged”.p. 144
• Should have explored cost/benefits of sociosexual selection.p. 146
• Lacks “an unambiguous definition of mindware … the resemblance to (if not identity with) ‘culture’ needs to be explored”.p. 146
• The field of psychoneuroendocrinology and the developmental forces such as sensitive periods and behavior genetics is neglected.p. 147
• Its account of consciousness which depends upon coherence does not explain “possession, dissociation, out-of-body experiences and addictions”.p. 279
• “The authors seem to fall all too easily into a simplistic materialism”.p. 279
• The notion of Brain Age is wrong: “It is not the brain age, but the mind age, the culture age, the dawning realization of our capacity to program our brain to do many different things.p. 279
• Lacks anatomical and flowchart illustrations.
• Does not discuss the work of Leda Cosmides and John Tooby nor Steven Mithen.