Too Smart for our Own Good: The Ecological Predicament of Humankind [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Craig Dilworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2009 | ISBN-10: 052175769X | Edition: 1

We are destroying our natural environment at a constantly increasing pace, and in so doing undermining the preconditions of our own existence. Why is this so? This book reveals that our ecologically disruptive behavior is in fact rooted in our very nature as a species.
Drawing on evolution theory, biology, anthropology, archaeology, economics, environmental science and history, this book explains the ecological predicament of humankind by placing it in the context of the first scientific theory of our species' development, taking over where Darwin left off.
The theory presented is applied in detail to the whole of our seven-million-year history. Due to its comprehensiveness, and in part thanks to its extensive glossary and index, this book can function as a compact encyclopedia covering the whole development of Homo sapiens. It would also suit a variety of courses in the life and social sciences. Most importantly, Too Smart makes evident the very core of the paradigm to which our species must shift if it is to survive.
Anyone concerned about the future of humankind should read this ground-breaking work.

This book:
• Provides the first and only theory of humankind's development
• Explains that economic and political (military) power have their respective biological bases in individual vs. group territoriality
• Provides the first classification of human instincts: into the survival, sexual and social instincts
• Provides the most inclusive characterization of different kinds of population check yet presented
• Explains the importance of the anthropological, archaeological and economic findings of the past 50 years to understanding humankind's development
• Clarifies the preconditions for human life on earth
• Predicts what will happen to us in the near future

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Dilworth's book is very interesting, well written, and based on an incredible amount of research. It provides a thoroughly novel view of extremely important issues, one which will add considerably to the discussion concerning limits to growth." Dennis Meadows, co-author of Limits to Growth

"[Dilworth's] economics discussions are on target. I congratulate him on his very comprehensive undertaking." Herman Daly, author of Steady-State Economics

"An impressive volume--comprehensive and scholarly. The book's central ideas are of critical importance for humankind." Tony (AJ) McMichael, author of Human Frontiers, Environments and Disease (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

"[Dilworth] writes extremely well, is widely read, and has a unique wealth of knowledge. This book is unique in its coverage and presentation; and the examples it provides are excellent." David Pimentel, Cornell University; editor of Food, Energy and Society

"... a very fine piece of work, and most welcome as we humans careen toward crisis and disaster. I hope the book gets widely discussed and perhaps even starts to change the extraordinarily ignorant, fantasy-driven media discussions of contemporary problems that seem to focus on aspects of ideology and belief to the neglect of the underlying processes that, I increasingly fear, are driving us to ruin. ... I like the book very much. It is a piece of first-rate scholarship written in a clear and engaging style. ... I would like to see this book widely read by a literate general audience. It could also serve as the basic text for upper division courses in human ecology in departments of anthropology, sociology, geography (and maybe even economics)." Allen W. Johnson, co-author of The Evolution of Human Societies

"Dilworth's book is an exceptionally 'good read' and is a synthesis of many important components (ecological, social, and technological) that are commonly treated in isolation from each other. Information is provided in a systematic and orderly way, and the flow from one idea to the next is almost seamless. The book also has a wealth of useful references. ... [It] is well written and should be important to anyone interested in the future of civilization and Homo sapiens. Such breadth and depth in a single book are rare." Environmental Conservation

"I would honestly have to say that this is one of the most important books I've ever read." Ronnie Wright, World Change Café (www.aclimateforchange.org)

Book Description

This 2009 book explains our ecological predicament by contextualising it against the first scientific theory of humankind's development, drawing on evolution theory, biology, anthropology, archaeology, economics, environmental science and history. It takes over where Darwin left off, revealing that our ecologically disruptive behaviour is rooted in our nature as a species.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 546 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (December 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052175769X
• ASIN: B007MXBNGS
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Multidisciplinary, systems thinking and courageous intellectual honesty June 10, 2011

By Cassandrus

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book calmly explains the ecological predicament of humankind without ranting, hand wringing or polemics. And unlike most books on our predicament, it includes all the elements - human overpopulation, the many kinds of depletion of renewable as well as non-renewable resources, toxic waste, and the overwhelming of the environment's capacity of absorb even non-toxic waste, e.g. CO2 (climate change) and nitrogen (dead zones in oceans, bays & other waterways).

The importance the book gives to overpopulation is especially important to me, because in 1966 I began a career in what we could then call international "birth control" (now "family planning"). At that time, the world population was only a fraction over 3 billion (vs. 7 billion today). I abandoned the career after 10 years, because no nation was willing to try to stop its population growth. And ever since I have been looking for a book that explains humankind's recurrent problem of overpopulation, and why China appears still to be the only nation that is trying to stop its population growth as quickly as is humanely possible. After all these years, I have finally found the explanation I have been looking for. Dr. Dilworth has provided it in both a short and a long form.

The short form of the explanation is encapsulated in Dr. Dilworth's presentation of his elegantly simple but profound vicious circle principle. The long form consists of his multidisciplinary theory of the development of humankind, in which the principle is applied to the entire 200,000 years of Homo sapiens' existence. The book references work in such diverse fields as public health, geology, climatology, genetics, biology, archaeology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, evolution, economics, agronomy, engineering and the hard sciences.... The long form of the explanation, of course, illustrates the vicious circle principle at work. The book explains not only humankind's failure to control the size of its population, but also its failure to limit its use of resources, and to limit, process or otherwise control its pollution and other waste.

Dr. Dilworth has done as much, I believe, as any one person can be expected to do in this kind of project, especially considering that he worked on it over a 15-year period without any funding or staff support. Moreover, it is possible that this invaluable kind of multidisciplinary, broad thinking can only be done by one person working alone, as was the case with Charles Darwin.

I invited Dr. Dilworth to come to the U.S. from Sweden, stay as my house guest, and let me help him find opportunities to speak about this book. I have never done this before for any author and probably will never again be so motivated to promote a book. Read more ›

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The first book that puts it ALL together. Makes An Inconvenient Truth practically irrelevant June 5, 2011

By Steve Bishakis

Format:Paperback

Craig Dilworth has written that rarest of non-fiction: important, exhaustive, meticulous, yet completely comprehendible. Through his invention of the VCP, or Vicious Circle Principle, Dilworth elegantly demonstrates how need leads to technology, which leads to population growth, which obviously takes us back to need again - which is where we are now - from every conceivable perspective. It is the author's mind-boggling mastery of many scholarly disciplines that makes his groundbreaking study of mankind's precarious status on earth so terrifying. Folks, this is the wake-up call, even if it's a century too late. At least we'll know what brought it all down.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Real Insight into the Human Environmental Predicament June 12, 2011

By David Pimentel

Format:Hardcover

Craig Dilworth has written a most timely book focusing on the ecological, evolutionary, economic, and environmental aspects of the human species. Among other things, with reference to the pioneering principle, he explains that we humans are no different from other species in that, given a surplus of food and breeding sites, our population will grow. On the whole, this situation of surplus has been experienced by humankind ever since we first came into existence some 200,000 years ago, and our population has now grown to some seven billion. But, more importantly, were this surplus to be removed, there would be a population crash involving high mortality, just as there would be in the case of any other species. And, according to Dilworth, this is precisely what we are to expect for humankind in the near future. With humans now facing the end of oil availability in less than 40 years, we will no longer have the energy necessary to produce sufficient food. As a matter of fact, already more than 60% of the world's population is malnourished, and this is globally the prime cause of death, leading many investigators to call for us to reduce our numbers. One can wonder whether it is too late to escape this marked increase in mortality, as Dilworth suggests.

The key principle in the book, however, is Dilworth's vicious circle principle. According to it, the reason for the excessive growth of the human population, while the populations of other species tend to vacillate about a mean, lies ultimately in our ability to develop and apply new technology (thus making us "too smart for our own good").... The vicious circle principle, which applies only to humans, says: "Humankind's development consists in an accelerating movement from situations of scarcity, to technological innovation, to increased resource availability, to increased consumption, to population growth, to resource depletion, to scarcity once again, and so on." (p. 110). And with each turn of the circle, the human population increases in size.

This book should be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of our species. Read more ›

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A wide-ranging analysis of how we got to be where we are today June 30, 2010

By pitkataistelu

Format:Paperback

In a sentence, this book grounds mankind's problems of sustainability (of its ecosystem and therefore ultimately of its own continued existence) in its biological-evolutionary development. To this end, the author synthesizes the thought of a number of scholars, including Malthus and Darwin, but his own contribution consists in the definition of a single principle, which states that homo sapiens is stuck in a vicious circle leading from vital need (population pressure) to the development of new technology that more thoroughly exploits natural resources; the newly-created surplus of available resources is, however, cancelled out by a relaxing of internal population checks, leading to renewed population pressure and vital need amidst an ever-growing exploitation of finite resources. Key is that at every turn of this cycle, the species becomes dependent on the technology it develops: the loss of a development like fire, for instance, would reduce mankind's potential habitat to a comparatively narrow strip along the equator (i.e. die-off elsewhere), a region that itself has lost much of its one-time fertility to such technological developments as irrigation (leading to salinization and desertification).

The presentation of the argument is encyclopedic and patient: opening with the definition of a few key principles of physics, biology, and chemistry, Dilworth next observes that an ecological perspective has recently become fashionable in archaeology and anthropology. The same approach has likewise been proposed in economics, but it has found little resonance there; accordingly, the historical introduction to this field is disappointingly brief.... The author then spends two theoretical chapters discussing the above-mentioned vicious circle principle and the various evolutionary principles on which it rests. The bulk of the book's volume, however, is taken up by chapter five, which demonstrates the theory at work in the evolution and history of mankind, tracing this development from the evolution of early hominids to the industrial age. By the end of this chapter, the focus has become sociological and economic, and this focus is retained in two final chapters discussing the present and future of mankind (in scathing terms, I might add).

All told, the book touches on a wide array of academic fields in considerable detail. Although it certainly is not as popsci as the title makes it sound, the author, a philosopher whose work focuses mostly on the philosophy of science, has no PhD in evolutionary biology or economics. Even if he did, a work this wide-ranging is bound to get a few facts wrong here and there. The style of writing is such that nearly every second sentence could do with a source reference; in fact, the 454 pages of this book have a combined total of 1755 endnotes, not as many as I should have liked but enough to follow up on the main claims. While I too am not an evolutionary biologist or economist, some of the claims made seem problematic: it seems odd, for instance, to claim that chimpanzees do not use tools in their natural habitat and cite for this claim a source from the 1950s, before Goodall began her field research. Indeed, the claim was unnecessary, as the only thing necessary for the author's point is that, as he states elsewhere, chimpanzees do not _develop_ technologically, i.e. they do not constantly improve on existing technology and even abandon sticks immediately after using them as tools. Similarly in the domain of history, the author occasionally resorts to accounts of extreme human cruelty in ancient times (a king's literal roasting of his prettiest concubine, or somesuch) to make his point, which is flawed methodology on account of its being anecdotal not representative, as well as difficult to verify. The author also makes a number of strong statements on such highly controversial topics as the economic efficiency of nuclear power facilities, which at present I feel insufficiently informed to judge, although the book has introduced to me some real concerns I had not previously considered.

Despite my reservations about the reliability of a portion of the wealth of information contained in this book, the overall argument seems sound and accords with my own thoughts on the unsustainability of economic growth and of feeding a world population as large as today's. The work is filled with eye-openers that have changed the way I look at the world. The opening chapters of the book make for a fascinating read for those interested in the evolution of species, while the final chapters address in an undiluted fashion the real concerns faced by every human society today. Accordingly, the reader of the book is likely to experience a progression from fascination to depression, as the author is honest enough not to end on a note of hope where he sees none. In the concluding chapters one may feel that one has been drawn into a discussion of the evils of capitalism without the intention of reading a book on that subject, but this societal criticism follows naturally from the author's evolutionary argument and, it seems, is inevitable if sustainability is to be considered.

If you read one book in your life, make this it. Every consumer, voter, and politician should be familiar with the principles here laid out. Read more ›