The Things We Do: Using the Lessons of Bernard and Darwin to Understand the What, How, and Why of Our Behavior (Hardcover)

by Gary Cziko (Author) "As we enter the third millennium, we can look back at a century of unprecedented scientific and technological progress..." (more)
Key Phrases: United States, William James, Charles Darwin (more...)

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Product Description
The remarkable achievements that modern science has made in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, and engineering contrast sharply with our limited knowledge of the human mind and behavior. A major reason for this slow progress, claims Gary Cziko, is that with few exceptions, behavioral and cognitive scientists continue to apply a Newtonian-inspired view of animate behavior as an organism's output determined by environmental input. This one-way cause-effect approach ignores the important findings of two major nineteenth-century biologists, French physiologist Claude Bernard and English naturalist Charles Darwin. Approaching living organisms as purposeful systems that behave in order to control their perceptions of the external environment provides a new perspective for understanding what, why, and how living things, including humans, do what they do. Cziko examines in particular perceptual control theory, which has its roots in Bernard's work on the self-regulating nature of living organisms and in the work of engineers who developed the field of cybernetics during and after World War II. He also shows how our evolutionary past together with Darwinian processes currently occurring within our bodies, such as the evolution of new brain connections, provide insights into the immediate and ultimate causes of behavior. Writing in an accessible style, Cziko shows how the lessons of Bernard and Darwin, updated with the best of current scientific knowledge, can provide solutions to certain long-standing theoretical and practical problems in behavioral science and enable us to develop new methods and topics for research.

About the Author
Gary Cziko is Professor and AT&T Technology Fellow in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Without Miracles (MIT Press, 1995).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; illustrated edition edition (May 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262032775
• ISBN-13: 978-0262032773
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,202,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good help from a master puzzle-solver, March 10, 2003

By	selfconscious (Las Vegas, Nevada USA) - See all my reviews

I have only read about the first third of this book, so this review is only temporary. But if somebody stumbles into this page, then I want you know without delay that Gary Cziko is an authentically kind and intelligent researcher into the problem of what's going on with human behavior.

His book "Without Miracles" established his credibility with me. And I am extremely pleased to be able to benefit from his informed investigations into why I find myself doing things that otherwise mystify me.

Pointing me in the direction of internal reference levels has cleared away much of the fog that defied logical analysis with regard to examining the subject of motivating human purposes.

Thank you Gary!! I will flesh this review out when I finish reading your work.