William Calvin's Brain Evolution Books
As I write this, William Calvin is primarily concerned with climate. Well, so am I, but fixing is better than worrying. Understanding how brains (and the people containing them) work is a key to designing server sky, which enables alternatives to high consumption of terrrestrial mass and energy. So, the following is notes about his older books:
The Throwing Madonna
Essays on the Brain
PSU QP376.C33 1983
- clever essays
- p xviii insidious superficial reductionism by physicists
- p xviii recommends "Programs of the Brain" by J.Z. Young PSU QP376.Y69
- p xx of the 10 billion neurons comprising the brain, 100 billion are granule cell neurons in the cerebellum.
p xxi 18th century Dutchman who cut Rembrandt's Night Watchman to fit a smaller room
p 3, Throwing Madonna; heart is in center of chest, but left side is louder. Mothers hold infants with their left arm as a pacifier, and throw and make tools with the right arm.
- p 5, handwriting: 0.34% ambidextrous, 10.6% left handed, 89% right handed (left brain rapid sequencers)
- p 14, domesticated cats mimic infants
- p 20, Books of science essays don't sell (Harold Morowitz), counterexample "Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
- p 21, mimic cookbook, sex manual, or cat book
- p 24, chimps find termite collection sticks in advance of need
- p 25, chimps and hammer rocks for Panda and Coula nuts, most tool users are females
- p 33, sequential movements lateralized to left brain, strokes there cause sequence problems
- 9 48, prisoner's dilemma tit-for-tat requires recognizing individuals
The Ascent of Mind
Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence
Central 573.2 C168a