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A review by zachlittrell
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan
4.0
The original lecture, which Carl Sagan then elaborated into Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, must have been wild. Despite biology lying a few meters out of Sagan's typical lane, he applies his keen analysis, rigor, and dry wit admirably to a big problem: what on earth is human intelligence? Sagan constructs detailed pictures of partitions of the brain, the interplay of language and intelligence, and some amusingly outdated descriptions of computers and the future of computing's role in our lives (and I'll hand it to Sagan -- his prediction of computing's future ubiquity proved correct).
However, there is no getting around that nagging word in the title of the book, 'speculations.' Sagan's prose is so charmingly didactic, you walk away from his book feeling energized and educated. So it's disappointing to read a beloved educator propose a question and give the written version of a shrug as an answer; too many parts felt like My Dinner with Andre masquerading as science. But Sagan doesn't hide the speculative nature of the work, and I think it is a testament to Sagan's rational mind that many conjectures the book makes have largely survived over the decades, or at least aren't complete bunkum.
So I would not say that anything in this book is paradigm shattering; a good deal of its insights, such as its centerpiece hypothesis of a triune brain, are old hat by now. But as a starting point for investigating the brain and its fascinating interactions with our evolution as a species, it does its job well. At worse, you get to go on a journey that Sagan was very clearly enthusiastic about.
However, there is no getting around that nagging word in the title of the book, 'speculations.' Sagan's prose is so charmingly didactic, you walk away from his book feeling energized and educated. So it's disappointing to read a beloved educator propose a question and give the written version of a shrug as an answer; too many parts felt like My Dinner with Andre masquerading as science. But Sagan doesn't hide the speculative nature of the work, and I think it is a testament to Sagan's rational mind that many conjectures the book makes have largely survived over the decades, or at least aren't complete bunkum.
So I would not say that anything in this book is paradigm shattering; a good deal of its insights, such as its centerpiece hypothesis of a triune brain, are old hat by now. But as a starting point for investigating the brain and its fascinating interactions with our evolution as a species, it does its job well. At worse, you get to go on a journey that Sagan was very clearly enthusiastic about.