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What Do Animals Think and Feel?
- Narrated by: Kris Dyer
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
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Publisher's summary
In What Do Animals Think and Feel?, the biologist Karsten Brensing has something astonishing to tell us about the animal kingdom: namely that animals, by any reasonable assessment, have developed the sophisticated systems of social organisation and behaviour that human beings call 'culture'.
Dolphins call one another by name and orcas inhabit a culture that is over 700,000 years old. Chimpanzees wage strategic warfare while bonobos delight in dirty talk. Ravens enjoy snowboarding on snow-covered roofs, and snails like to spin on hamster exercise wheels.
Humped-back whales follow the dictates of fashion, and rats are dedicated party animals. Ants recognise themselves in mirrors and spruce themselves up before they return home.
Ducklings can pass complicated tests in abstract thinking. Dogs punish disloyalty, though they are also capable of forgiveness if you apologise to them.
Brensing draws on the latest scientific findings as well as his own experience working with animals to reveal a world of behavioural and cognitive sophistication that is remarkable similar to our own.
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Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest", but in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy. Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A Lot Of Things In Common With Our Animal Friends!
- By James on 08-14-11
By: Frans de Waal
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 189
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 164
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 160
The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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Bozo Sapiens
- Why to Err Is Human
- By: Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 48
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Story4 out of 5 stars 46
Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in myriad different ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher rate of interest when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find the most despised aliens were ones from a group that did not exist? What made four of the Air Force's best pilots fly their planes, in formation, straight into the ground?
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5 out of 5 stars
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A tour de force
- By Ivan on 07-05-11
By: Michael Kaplan, and others
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The Bonobo and the Atheist
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 609
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 541
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 539
In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution. For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Great research on apes, bad research on humans
- By Christian Bonnell on 07-18-14
By: Frans de Waal
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How Language Began
- The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention
- By: Daniel L. Everett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 300
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 252
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Story4 out of 5 stars 252
Mankind has a distinct advantage over other terrestrial species: we talk to one another. But how did we acquire the most advanced form of communication on Earth? Daniel L. Everett, a "bombshell" linguist and "instant folk hero" (Tom Wolfe, Harper's), provides in this sweeping history a comprehensive examination of the evolutionary story of language, from the earliest speaking attempts by hominids to the more than 7,000 languages that exist today.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Hard to endure
- By Michael D. Busch on 09-09-18
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Intelligence in Nature
- An Inquiry into Knowledge
- By: Jeremy Narby
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 192
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 165
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 163
Anthropologist Jeremy Narby has altered how we understand the Shamanic cultures and traditions that have undergone a worldwide revival in recent years. Now, in one of his most extraordinary journeys, Narby travels the globe - from the Amazon Basin to the Far East - to probe what traditional healers and pioneering researchers understand about the intelligence present in all forms of life. Intelligence in Nature presents overwhelming illustrative evidence that independent intelligence is not unique to humanity alone.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Favorite part was untrue :(
- By Al A'scgh on 08-13-18
By: Jeremy Narby
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Out of Our Heads
- You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness
- By: Alva Noe
- Narrated by: Jay Snyder
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 51
Alva Noë is one of a new breed - part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist - who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the 200-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A bold, yet ultimately unsupported, hypothesis
- By Keith Pyne-Howarth on 01-17-10
By: Alva Noe
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Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
- By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Narrated by: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 718
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 592
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 582
Have you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In seven short essays (plus a bite-sized story about how brains evolved), this slim, entertaining, and accessible collection reveals mind-expanding lessons from the front lines of neuroscience research. You'll learn where brains came from, how they're structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience.
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3 out of 5 stars
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slow reader & little bit of a Wokie
- By darren on 06-01-21
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Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 901
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 771
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 763
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,099
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 979
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 977
A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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The Mind Club
- Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters
- By: Daniel M. Wegner, Kurt Gray
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 760
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 670
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 673
Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Who is the self in me? Am I part of something bigger?
- By Philomath on 03-24-16
By: Daniel M. Wegner, and others
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Dog Sense
- How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet
- By: John Bradshaw
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 288
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 235
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Story4 out of 5 stars 232
Dogs have been mankind's faithful companions for tens of thousands of years, yet today they are regularly treated as either pack-following wolves or furry humans. The truth is, dogs are neither - and our misunderstanding has put them in serious crisis. What dogs really need is a spokesperson, someone who will assert their specific needs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book
- By Fair Oaks on 08-31-11
By: John Bradshaw
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Perception
- How Our Bodies Shape Our Minds
- By: Dennis Proffitt, Drake Baer
- Narrated by: Angela Dawe
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Perception marries academic rigor with mainstream accessibility. The research presented and the personalities profiled will show what it means to not only have, but be, your unique human body. The positive ramifications of viewing ourselves from this embodied perspective include greater athletic, academic, and professional achievement, more nourishing relationships, and greater personal well-being. The better we can understand what our bodies are - what they excel at, what they need, what they must avoid - the better we can live our lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The body-mind connection well explained
- By Lucy A. Pithecus on 12-11-22
By: Dennis Proffitt, and others
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The Blind Watchmaker
- Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,788
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,412
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,383
The Blind Watchmaker, knowledgably narrated by author Richard Dawkins, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the 18th-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Challenging textbook more than an enjoyable listen
- By Eric on 01-15-12
By: Richard Dawkins
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Virus of the Mind
- The New Science of the Meme
- By: Richard Brodie
- Narrated by: Richard Brodie
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 173
Virus of the Mind is the first popular work devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. Here, the author carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and others who have become fascinated with memes and their potential impact on our lives.
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2 out of 5 stars
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The "Memes Explain Everything" Meme.
- By Nelson Alexander on 02-20-10
By: Richard Brodie