Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan

Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence Reviews

• 
  Mohammed-Makram

  
  لو غاوى كتب الأرصفه و الأعلى مبيعا سيعجبك ككتاب خفيف و ممتع و اسلوبه شيق لكن لو بتقرأه من أجل الماده العلميه هتلاقيه سطحى و غير دقيق و يستند لأطروحات و استنتاجات نظرية لم يدعمها العلم بصوره قاطعه و لا حتى بصورة شبه مؤكدة.
  
  العنوان خادع شويتين و لو انه متوقع ان كتاب بالحجم الصغير ده صعب يناقش قضية بالخطورة دى لكنه مسلى و تقدر تعتبره مقدمة فى فهم المخ البشرى و تطوره لدى الانسان.
• 
  هدى يحيى

  واحدٌ من أمتع ما قرأت على الإطلاق
  يكاد يضاهي كتاب الكون في جماله وتفرده
  
  الطريقة التي قدم بها سيجن معلوماته لازلت قادرة على إدهاشي
  فالعلم عنده ليس مجرد مصطلحات جامدة ولا سطور محشوة بالمعلومات الجديدة
  
  كارل سيجن يملك دهشة الأطفال
  وهو قادر على انتزاع تلك الشهقات الطفلية منك مع كل كتاب جديد
  
  فلا شيء في الكون لا يثير عجبه وانذهاله
  ولا أية خفقة تسري فيه لا يعتبرها معجزة متجددة
  
  
  أمتع ما جاء في الكتاب بالنسبة لي وقتها كان تعرفي على التقويم الكوني لأول مرة
  
  كما تمتعت للغاية بما كتب عن الغرض التطور للنوم والأحلام
  وبالطبع تلك التفنيدات الخاصة بتطور الدماغ البشري
  كل هذافي بوتقة واحدة تضم الأنثروبولجيا وعلم الأحياءالتطوري والتاريخ وعلم النفس
  
  ربما هذا الخليط الممتزج بحنكة ورشاقة وصدق هو أكثر ما يجذبني
  
  لقد امتلأ سيجن بالحب والتفاؤل وعشق الفضاء والكون
  وامتك أيضا تلك القدرة الفريدة على أن يظل نزيها لآخر أنفاسه
  
  ولذلك فمع كل فصل يرتبط فيه العلم بالتاريخ بالمتعة الغير محدودة
  لا يسعك إلا أن تنحني احتراما امام هذا الكائن المتفرد
  
  ولكن غالبا ما سيبتسم سيجن لك كأخ في الإنسانية
  وسيجذب يدك ليبحر وإياك في رحلة جديدة
  
  أيها الكارل
  أنا أحبك
  
  -------
  
  الكتاب موجود بالعربية بترجمة طيبة لسمير حنا صادق
  تحت عنوان تنينات عدن: تأملات في تطور ذكاء الإنسان
  
• 
  Arun Divakar

  The most hauting question that this book poses is this :
  
  Chimpanzees can abstract. Like other mammals, they are capable of strong emotions.Why, exactly, all over the civilized world, in virtually every major city, are apes in prison?
  
  For a species that has proclaimed itself to be the rulers of Earth, this is not a very difficult question to answer for us. It is a single word : suppression. We humans never much liked competition from other creatures and history tells us that this was how we overcame all our natural predators through weaponry or guile in the eons past. A moment of reflection on our past brings up that question : why did the other humanoids not survive while our ancestors did ? How did they all gt wiped out ? Natural selection could not have been the only answer.This book is one that shook me out of cerebral complacency and like a good author, Sagan opens the cobweb laden windows of my brain and lets the light in.
  
  This is a book length introspection into the nature of human intellect. From the first tottering steps of our primate ancestors to today's technologically addicted life forms, how has the journey been for that mass of tissue between our ears ? This is what Sagan attempts to answer. In simple,lucid and easy to comprehend prose the author breaks down the story of how our brains assumed today's form and reflexes. It is a tour de force that mixes and matches history,paleontology, psychology and other branches of human understanding to come up with a fascinating study.
  
  The evolution of the brain and how the most primal fears in our psyche still rule our subconscious is a fascinating observation and forms the best part of this book. The aspect of the Triune brain and the R-complex's involvement in human behavior is what Sagan calls the Dragons chained away in the dungeons of our minds. Our basic aversion to reptiles and the dreams populated with snakes coupled with the dreams of a fall from a height are all speculated upon by Sagan in teh backdrop of our dreams. They were quire revelatory and while I might at a later point in time (with more reading)debate these points, they did rekindle my interest in the human brain's inner workings.
  
  I finished reading, put down the book and ran my fingers through my hair and muttered You are a rockstar to my brain. The kind of rockstar who you can never fully figure out is how it might react to that comment !
  
  This book is highly recommended and it is no fluke that I rate all of Sagan's books so far as five stars. This is stuff that will genuinely interest the skeptical mind.
• 
  Ashley

  One of the most beautiful things I've ever read came from this book:
  
  "If the human brain had only one synapse-- corresponding to a monumental stupidity-- we would be capable of only two mental states. If we had two synapses, then 2^2 = 4 states; three synapses, then 2^3 = 8 states, and, in general, for N synapses, 2^N states. But the human brain is characterized by some 10^13 synapses. Thus the number of different states of a human brain is 2 raised to this power-- i.e., multiplied by itself ten trillion times. This is an unimaginably large number, far greater, for example, than the total number of elementary particles (electrons and protons) in the entire universe."
• 
  Ahmad Ebaid

  "كتنانين عدن"
  
  

  "إننا نتهم الأرواح الشريرة بأنها السبب في الصرع ؛ لأننا لا نفهم له سبباً آخر, ولو أننا اتهمنا الأرواح الشريرة بكل مرض لا نعرف له سبباً لامتلأ الكون بهذه الأرواح" أبوقراط

  
  في عام 1975, قام المؤلف "كارل ساجان" بتقديم أول محاضرة لذكرى "جايكوب برونسكي" في "الفلسفات الطبيعية" في جامعة تورونتو
  والكتاب الذي بين أيدينا توسيع لتلك المحاضرة
  
  والمؤلف ليس لديه خبرة كبيرة في تشريح المخ
  لديه فقط خبرة في البيولوجيا.
  
  فلقد قام بتلخيص ما قرأه عن الموضوع لمشاركته معنا في هذا الكتاب المبسط
  
  بدأ الفصل الأول بعرض التقويم الكوني, وهو ضغط للتاريخ الكوني كله في سنة واحدة
  تبدأ السنة مع الانفجار الكبير, وتنتهي عند الوقت الحالي
  
  باقي الفصول فهي عن الذكاء الإنساني وتاريخه التطوري
  
  ويتذبذب مستوى الفصول من جيدة لممتازة ملهمة, لمزعجة بمحاولته الحديث عن الأخلاقيات المرتفعة
  
  
  
  
  
  
  أما عن الترجمة, فهذا موقف المترجم
  

  "كما أرجو القارئ أن يسامحني على حذف سطور قليلة من الكتاب رأيت أنها ستجعله أكثر صعوبة وأنها لن تضيف شيئاً إلى الموضوع, علاوة على تجاوزها أحيانا لبعض الخطوط الحمراء في ثقافتنا."

  
  وأنا أشك في أن المترجم قد يكون أكثر تفهماً من كارل ساجان لكيفية عمل كتاب مخصص للعامة
  أما عن حذفه للعبارات التي رآها تتجاوز الخطوط الحمراء فهو أمر عجيب.
  ففي بداية المقدمة اشتكى من أن في نفسه شعوراً بالمرارة للظلم الذي يتعرض أبناؤنا وبناتنا بحرمانهم من البرامج العلمية القيمة
  

  "فكل ما شاهدوه في هذا المجال استعارات مشوهة من بعض هذه البرامج العلمية ,تلغي ما عليها من تعليقات ذكية مثيرة للتساؤل البنّاء وتوضع بدلاً منها تعليقات سطحية خفيفة تحتوي على كثير من الأخطاء , وتصب دلواً من الثلج البارد على كل ما كان يمكن أن تثيره هذه البرامج من نشاط عقلي"

  
  وأظن أنه يلمح إلى برنامج العلم والإيمان الذي كان يقدمه دكتور "مصطفى محمود", وهنا يحق لي التساؤل, إذا كان يريد لنا التعرض للأسئلة البناءة, وبناء عقل نقدي, فلماذا حذف تلك المواد التي يراها لا تناسب مجتمعنا؟ أليس هذا الحذف يرد إلى أنه لا يريد صدمنا بأي أسئلة قد تشككنا في عقائدنا أو قومياتنا, فقام هو بدور الوصي علينا وحذفها. كيف لنا إذاً أن ننمي عقلاً نقدياً ونحن لا يترجم لنا ما قد ينقد أصلاً, فكل ما يصلنا الآن هو ما يصلنا دائماً, نفس الأفكار التي تحيط بنا ونتبناها دائماً.
  إذاً ما هو معنى الحرية الفكرية لديك؟ أهو حريتك في نشر أفكارك ومهاجمة مصطفى محمود لأنه لا يسمح بنشرها في برنامجه؟ ألا يحق لنا أن نعرف تلك الأسئلة المشككة التي يطرحها كارل ساجان كما يحصل عليها الشباب الغربي؟ أم أنه يجب أن تكتفي بنقل مع ما يتوافق مع رؤيتك فقط؟
  
  وعلى هذا فإني أراه مدعي حرية, حتى وإن فعل ما فعله كقرباناً من أحد الأقلية تغزلاً في الأغلبية المتسلطة.
  
  المهم يعني, ابقوا على حذر من الترجمات المصرية, وعليكم بالترجمات اللبنانية والعراقية, وبعض الثقات من دور النشر.
  
  أما باقي الكتاب واللي تم ترجمته بالفعل, فكانت ترجمة جيدة.
• 
  Ahmad Sharabiani

  The Dragons of Eden: speculations on the evolution of human intelligence, Carl Sagan
  The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence is a 1977 book by Carl Sagan, in which the author combines the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and computer science to give a perspective on how human intelligence may have evolved.
  تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و هشتم ماه جولای سال 2014 میلادی
  عنوان: اژدهایان عدن: تاملی در تکامل هوش انسان؛ نوشته: کارل ساگان (سیگن)؛ ترجمه: جبیب الله تیموری؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، پاپیروس، 1368 در 243 ص مصور، جدول، نمودار، دارای کتابنامه از ص 235 تا 243؛ موضوع: هوش، مغز، روانشناسی ژنتیک - سده 20 م
  اژدهایان بهشت عدن: گمانه‌ زنی‌ها دربارهٔ فرگشت هوش انسان؛ کتابی ست اثر: کارل سیگن (ساگان)، اخترشناس و نویسنده آمریکایی که برنده ی جایزه پولیتزر شده‌ است. در این کتاب سیگن (ساگان) مباحث انسان‌شناسی، زیست‌ شناسی فرگشتی، روانشناسی و علوم رایانه را با هم ترکیب می‌کند تا دورنمایی از چگونگی فرگشت هوشمندی انسان به دست آورد. کتاب یک بسط و گسترش کلی از یک سخنرانی در بزرگداشت ژاکوب برونوفسکی در مورد فلسفه طبیعی بود که سیگن آن را در دانشگاه تورنتو ارائه داد. در قسمت دیباچه سیگن تز خود را ارائه می‌دهد که: ذهن پیامدی از آناتومی و فیزیولوژی‌ اش است نه چیزی بیشتر. با ارجاع به آثار چارلز داروین و آلفرد راسل والاس. در فصل دوم ایشان خلاصه‌ ای از فرگشت گونه‌ ها را از شروع مه‌ بانگ تا شروع تمدن انسانی با کمک روزنگار کیهانی ارائه می‌دهد؛ که هر یک میلیارد سال با بیست چهار ساعت در روزنگار کیهانی تطابق دارد. ا. شربیانی
• 
  Dan

  Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1978
  
  Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature.
  
  There isn’t much discussion of dragons, beyond a short snippet on Komodo dragons, in this book but Sagan uses this metaphor as a catchy title to highlight that this fear may be part of our own mammalian evolution. The dragon concept is buttressed by so many old tales throughout numerous civilizations that Sagan implies there must have been a fearsome dragon or related animal in our distant past that shaped our evolution. I am not convinced per se but the rest of the book is much more serious than this topic.
  
  Carl Sagan is arguably the greatest science writer and educator of recent times. In this book his mind, through his theories, is on full display for all to see. He steps through various evolutionary ideas about how man (and his brain) has evolved.
  
  As has been stated in other reviews of this book, a mark against it is that some sections are now outdated. Science evolves. Yet, for me, it is remarkable even when discussing a mundane game of ‘Pong’ that Sagan is able to foresee many of our challenges we face today. He even talks about the danger of computers and video games pre-empting children from learning the proper fundamentals of math and science. As a parent, there is little argument from me on this point.
  
  At its core this is a thought provoking book that resonates. It is short at only nine chapters so I will review the chapters here — because many are true gems and the rest are pretty good.
  
  Chapter 1 — The Cosmic Calendar
  In this chapter Sagan famously maps the age of the universe, nearly 14 billion years, into a single year. We see that if the Big Bang starts on January 1st at 12:01 am, then humans don’t arrive to the timeline until December 31st at 10:30 pm, and all of our recorded history can be confined to the final 10 seconds of the year! Powerful stuff.
  
  Chapter 2 — Genes and Brains
  The average human brain has 10^13 synapses. This means there are 2^(10^13) possible states of a single brain, a number that approaches the number of atoms in the universe. We also learn that “The simplest organisms on Earth today have just as much evolutionary history behind them as the most complex”. In other words even simple diatoms are well honed and efficient machines.
  
  Chapter 3 — The Brain and the Chariot
  Humans have a very high brain to mass ratio relative to any other animal on the planet. Sagan goes on to discuss sleep and posits a theory that land mammals sleep so much because they can hide and are less vulnerable than marine mammals. For example dolphins rarely sleep, sometimes only for a minute at a time. I will take it a step further and say that land mammals may also sleep so much because it is difficult for most, not all, mammals to find food in the dark. Isn’t it better to burn as few calories as possible through sleeping those night time hours away. Whatever the real reason, this trait goes back to the end of the dinosaur era.
  
  Chapter 4 — Eden as a Metaphor
  “paleontologists have deduced that “bipedalism preceded encephalization,” by which they mean that our ancestors walked on two legs before they evolved big brains.” It seems that hunting developed brains further in this regard.
  
  Chapter 5 — The Abstractions of the Beasts. My favorite chapter. It’s largely about how humans have developed verbal speech and a large part of our oversized brains are dedicated to this function. But it also discusses how incredibly smart chimpanzees are and how presumptuous humans are about or lack thereof intelligence in all animals. It seems that this view is because they don’t have vocal chords. Scientists have taught select chimps sign language and they have learned to use words correctly and in context (nouns, verbs and adjectives) to the tune of vocabularies in excess of one hundred words. The chimps can even sign curse words when humans introduce illogical steps into a food reward scheme. The average human uses just 1,000 common words in everyday speech and some mentally impaired humans don’t even reach that level. Sagan implies that due to the chimpanzee’s small brain volume it is unlikely they can ever achieve normal human level language. However it is clear that chimps (and many other animals) feel anxiety and think in ways that are much more in line with humans than I ever knew. The implication here is that the inability to verbalize word constructs, i.e. language, is what has kept other animals from evolving. Although dated, this chapter alone is worth the price of the book or a trip to the library.
  
  Chapter 6 — Tales of Dim Eden
  This chapter primarily revisits the topic of sleep first broached in chapter 3 and talks a good deal about dinosaurs. Maybe this section should have been combined with The Brain and the Chariot.
  
  Chapter 7 — Lovers and madmen
  This chapter is heavily focused on brain hemisphere functions and the tie-in to evolution. Very informative.
  
  “M. S. Gazzaniga of the State University of New York at Stony Brook suggests that hemispheric specialization occurs because language is developed in the left hemisphere before the child acquires substantial competence in manipulative skills and geometrical visualization. According to this view, the specialization of the right hemisphere for geometrical competence is a specialization by default—the left hemisphere’s competence has been redirected toward language.”
  
  
  Chapter 8 — The Future Evolution of our Brain.
  “In general, human societies are not innovative. They are hierarchical and ritualistic. Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion: they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy: an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals. And yet there are times when societies must change.”
  
  Wow. This is such a well articulated statement. Most of us recognize this type of change is the fundamental impediment to solving many of our country’s problems and by extension in solving the world’s environmental and population problems. Sagan goes on to wade into the abortion debate as well. He also talks about tech and its benefit and possible detriment to children. Not a cohesive chapter by any stretch and outdated perhaps, but still thought provoking.
  
  Chapter 9 — Knowledge is our Destiny
  An intriguing chapter where Sagan speaks of aliens. It is his belief that while their physical forms will be unfamiliar to us, their minds will be similar
  
  “Organisms throughout the universe should therefore be sensitive to optical and/or radio radiation, and, after the development of physics, the idea of electromagnetic radiation for interstellar communication should be a cosmic commonplace—a convergent idea evolving independently on countless worlds throughout the galaxy after the local discovery of elementary astronomy, what we might call the facts of life. If we are fortunate enough to make contact with some of those other beings, I think we will find that much of their biology, psychology, sociology and politics will seem to us stunningly exotic and deeply mysterious. But I suspect we will have little difficulty in understanding each other on the simpler aspects of astronomy, physics, chemistry and perhaps mathematics.”
  
  4.5 stars. The writing here warrants five stars. At 40 years and counting and the fact the book could have been longer, this is more like a 4 star book to me. Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot still remain my favorite Sagan books and are beautiful works. Sagan has long since passed away but I greatly miss his insights and his non-righteous quest for the truth. It really shines through in virtually all of his writing. Highly recommended.
• 
  Bradley

  Carl Sagan is a big name, or at least he used to be. But other than the series Cosmo or the movie with Jodi Foster, he was known for his speculation in... everything. :)
  
  In this case, it's consciousness. By the title, he's referring to the lizard brain. And considering the fact that he was writing this out of the 70's and he disclaimed the hell out of it, it's meant to be a conversation starter for laymen.
  
  All good.
  
  And it's good, too. If I was reading this 40 years ago or even 30 years ago, I'd nod energetically at a lot of the ideas. The writing is good, the ideas sound, and the subject is still obviously open today.
  
  So what did I have a problem with?
  
  Actually, my complaint is rather prosaic.
  
  It's just dated. HEAVILY dated. It's like the line from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Prosser still thinks that digital watches are a good idea.
  
  There are better books that do the job of this one, but for the time I'm sure it was pretty fantastic. Not everything was dated. Philosophy and basic math and the broad strokes were good. But the fields of mental health, computers and computer games, the current development of cloning, AIs, and a huge extra list WAS.
  
  Alas. Time marches on.
  
• 
  Stacey Mulvey

  I'd read this book a few years ago, and loved it. It's a great introduction to brain anatomy, consciousness/subconsciousness, and evolution. An "easy" read, if any book that deals with these types of topics can be considered as such. Sagan is good at presenting complex material in an interesting and palatable way. It made me want to start paying more attention to my dreams. (He also relates one of his personal experiences of smoking marijuana, and his theories of the effects it might have on the brain and consciousness.)
• 
  Kevin

  1977 - As much as I miss the genius that was Carl Sagan, I am not above a little good natured razzing of the era in which this book was written.
  
  “There is a popular game, sometimes called Pong, which simulates on a television screen a perfectly elastic ball bouncing between two surfaces. Each player is given a dial that permits him to intercept the ball with a movable “racket.” Points are scored if the motion of the ball is not intercepted by the racket. The game is very interesting.” (pg 214)
  
  Those of you old enough to remember Pong should take a few moments to reminisce about the technology of 1977 before moving along to the science of 1977.
  
  “A great deal of what we consider important about the last few tens of millions of years of Earth’s history seems to hinge on the extinction of the dinosaurs. There are literally dozens of scientific hypotheses that attempt to explain this event, which appears to have been remarkably rapid and thorough for both land and water forms. All the explanations proposed seem to be only partly satisfactory. They range from massive climatic change to mammalian predation to the extinction of a plant with apparent laxative properties, in which case the dinosaurs died of constipation.” (pg 136)
  
  It wasn’t until round about 1980 that the Alvarez hypothesis (an asteroid collision killed the dinosaurs) was proposed. To be fair, I’m certain that Sagan’s comments on constipation extinction were anecdotal and tongue-in-cheek.
  
  “The most recent dinosaur fossil is dated at about sixty million years ago. The family of man (but not the genus Homo) is some tens of millions of years old. Could there have been man-like creatures who actually encountered Tyrannosaurus rex?” (pg 142)
  
  The answer to that question, based on the preponderance of the evidence, is a big, huge, fucking NO. What Sagan is doing here, and I am admittedly quoting him somewhat out of context, is pondering the possible origins of the cross cultural archetype of the dragon. To break this down, the oldest known Australopiths (man-like but not the genus Homo) date to roughly 3.85 million years ago. The credible evidence for dinosaurs peters out at about 65 million years ago. That’s a gap of approximately 61 million years. That’s 61 followed by six zeros. The only evidence of a primate-like mammal that MIGHT have been contemporaneous with T-Rex is “Teilhardina,” and it was much more mouse-like than man-like.
  
  Like all great thinkers, Sagan’s science and philosophy evolved over time and, in spite of the evidence I’ve presented here, there is more right with The Dragons of Eden than there is wrong. Time may have diminished its fire, but it hasn’t extinguished its spirit.
  
  “Curiosity and the urge to solve problems are the emotional hallmarks of our species; and the most characteristically human activities are mathematics, science, technology, music and the arts - a somewhat broader range of subjects than is usually included under the “humanities.” Indeed, in its common usage this very word seems to reflect a peculiar narrowness of vision about what is human. Mathematics is as much a “humanity” as poetry.” (pg 77)
• 
  Javier Santaolalla

  ¡He leído mi primer libro de Sagan! No saben cuánto tiempo llevaba esperando esto. Tantas recomendaciones, tanto cariño de tanta gente por este gran hombre... siento que lo quiero por la semilla que ha dejado en tantas personas, tuvo que ser un gran hombre para marcar tanto a toda una generación. Es increíble que yo lo admirara tanto sin conocer su trabajo, solo por ver cómo la gente hablaba de él. Y por fin... me atreví, mi primer libro de Sagan. Vamos con él.
  No, no es un libro sobre astronomía, ni astrofísica... es un libro sobre biología, la biología del ser humano, en particular su inteligencia. Y es un libro obviamente marcado por lo que se sabía en su época, muy lejos de lo que hoy se conoce, sobre el ser humano y su cerebro. Un libro, en muchos aspectos desfasado. Y esto para un físico leyendo biología es una bomba. ¿Qué de lo que leo sigue vigente y qué ha pasado a la historia? No lo sé... Eso sí, lo que nunca va a pasar de moda es ese calor único que desprende Sagan, como persona.
  Cuando habla de la ciencia, como habla de ella, se nota tanto que lo que siente por ella es tan puro y tan contagioso. Es esencia de Sagan, yo lo sé, es su sello, lo que siente y transmite es único. GRACIAS SAGAN.
  No será nunca este mi libro favorito, pero solo espero que caiga en mis manos otro libro de Sagan porque estoy seguro de que conectaremos. Y ya tengo 3 en mi librería... ¿cuál será?
• 
  Francisca

  In this Pulitzer prize winning book, Carl Sagan, indubitably one of the finest scientific minds of our time, expresses his thoughts about life, most particularly about intelligent life, and its relation with the environment that gave it origin and shaped it.
  
  Aided by anthropological notions, evolutionary biology, psychology, and computer science, Sagan gives a well balanced perspective of how human intelligence evolved. However, notwithstanding Sagan's expertise in astrophysics, he warns us that in the neurosciences he's more of an amateur scholar than consumed expert. That, added to the age of the book, results in much of the book being speculative work. Interestingly, some of his assumptions have been latter integrated to the commonly accepted model for the evolution of the human brain.
  
  One of my favorite sections of the book takes on the biological function behind human intelligence. I particularly like when Sagan considers the complexity of biological life forms, putting in perspective the real significance of our cultural and technological advances.
  
  Anyone interested in human evolution will find this book exciting. The meaning of the evolution of extra-genetic intelligence (brains in animals and humans) and extra-somatic intelligence (writing, books, computers) in humans, the nature of instincts buried in our older "reptilian brain" regions, the conflict between the left and right neocortex and the purpose of each, this is exciting stuff that we can all see at work in our lives, giving evolution an extra layer of reality.
  
  After finishing reading, I was left wondering if the next evolutionary step would imply a complete detachment of our mind from the primate emotional instincts, and reliance only on the rational, more advanced brain. Is our brain on its way to become alike to Artificial Intelligence?
  
  I think Sagan did an extraordinary job with this book. His writing is engaging and easy to understand, even if you're not too much into the sciency stuff. Most impressive is how diverse, interesting and mind opening are the many well-informed topics contained in the ca. 250 pages of this book.
  
  A more recent book, "Up from Dragons: The Evolution of Human Intelligence (2002)" coauthor by Sagan and John Skoyles actualizes the concepts and hypotheses first presented in Dragons of Eden. But, don't get fooled, Up from Dragons is not a replacement reading to Dragons of Eden, it's a follow up for it will be a shame to miss Sagan's great original prose.
• 
  Ash

  "Chimpanzees can abstract. Like other mammals, they are capable of strong emotions.
  Why, exactly, all over the civilized world, in virtually every major city, are apes in prison?"
  
  "Humans have systematically exterminated those other primates who displayed signs of intelligence."
  
  Carl Sagan is the best science teacher one can ever get. Even though I am not a biology major, I was able to enjoy this book. A great book where he talks about EVERYTHING that you ever wanted to know about your brain. Probably one of the best non-fictions I have ever read.
  
  Some info that made me love this book:
  -> how much info do our genes carry
  -> evolution of human brain
  -> various components of human brain
  -> right and left hemisphere of brains
  -> what exactly is intuitiveness
  -> why do humans and other mammals sleep
  -> difference between dream sleep and dreamless sleep
  -> REM sleep
  -> what do our dreams mean
  -> why do some people sleep for longer time while some sleep for lesser time
  -> extraterrestrial intelligence
  -> what causes some of the mental illnesses
  -> why animals cannot talk
  -> Reptiles vs Mammals
  
  Pulitzer Prize Winner
• 
  Orhan Pelinkovic

  A great summary of the evolution of the brain (intelligence) in humans and how the homo sapiens brain compares to other spieces. Very informative and a great read.
  
  I've read the Ballantine Book 1977 publishing The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan / 288 pages / 77,454 words.
• 
  Mehmet

  Bugün öğlen saatlerinde büyük bir heyecanla elime aldığım kitabı an itibariyle üzülerek bitirmiş bulunuyorum.
  Cosmos kitabıyla tanıştığım Sagan'ın biraz daha farklı konulara değindiği bu kitabını da Cosmos ile aynı keyif ve heyecanla okudum.
  Sagan'ın ne kadar büyük bir deha olduğunu bir defa daha gördüm. Zira, alanı dışında bir konuda yazıyor ve bunda da son derece başarılı olduğunu düşünüyorum. Her ne kadar, bilimin doğal akışı gereği kitaptaki bazı bölümlerde sonradan yeni kanıtlar, gelişmeler ortaya çıktıysa da (Aklıma gelenler; Nenderthallerle ilgili gelişmeler, Dinazorların nasıl yok oldukları bölüm, fizik kurallarının evrende her noktada aynı işlediğini söylediği son bölüm ve bilgisayarların en fazla tuşlarının basılabilirliği ölçüsünde küçüleceğini söylediği bölümde dokunmatiği veya giriş ünitesi olmayan mini bilgisayarları öngör-e-memesi) son derece normal kabul edilebilir ve edilmelidir zira bilim insanının kahin olması beklenemez. Belki elli yıl sonra bu kitaptaki bilgilerin tamamı altüst edilecektir.
  Kitapta toplumsal değerlere, dine, siyasi teamüllere vs. pek eleştiri yapılmamış. Zira bugün bilimde deneylerin insanlar üzerinde yapılması konuları dahil olmak üzere hala tartışılan bazı ilkeler ya da etik değerler var. Bunlardan bahsetmemiş olması akıllıca. Sagan, okur kaybetmek istememiş. Bunun yerine, daha çok insana daha çok bilim ulaştırmak istemiş.
  Kitaptaki Shakespeare, William Blake vs. alıntıları Sagan'ın aynı zamanda ne denli büyük bir okur olduğunu da gösteriyor. Müspet bilim ile sınırlı tutmamış okumasını, neredeyse her konuda bir şeyler öğrenmeye çalışmış.
  Kitapta özellikle insan beyni hakkında çok şey öğrendim. Beni en çok etkileyen ise "Tekrarlama Teorisi" idi. Evrimsel sürecin aşamalarının embriyoda kendini gösterdiği, beynimizin ise ilkel beyinlerin üzerine eklenerek geliştiği yönündeki fikirler benim ufkumu genişletti.
  Bittiğinde ise üzüldüğümü söyleyebilirim.
  Keşke onu tanımış, onun öğrencisi olsaymışım.
  Oysa okumak, onun dersini almak gibi kabul edilebilir mi?
  
  Okuyun, okutun.
• 
  Mike

  Interesting questions on the origin and development of human intelligence. Still worth a read despite lots of progress since he wrote this. Gives a good description of left/right brain competencies. Has piqued my interest in evolutionary development. The guy was taken from us too early but sure made a name for himself in what time he had.
• 
  Traveller

  Interesting read, as long as one takes into account that it's quite old and outdated by now, so it's not exactly cutting edge. (I read it pretty long ago myself).
  
  Still, Sagan has a such a pleasant, conversational style, that even reading it for the speculations alone, makes reading the book a not unpleasant way of whiling away your time.
  
  I like the angles he chooses to speculate from, especially the bits about instinct and how myths most probably formed in the human collective subconscious.
• 
  Rosie

  ** 3,5 estrelas**
  
  "Os livros são objectos fáceis de armazenar e a que se pode ter acesso a qualquer momento. Podemos voltar atrás nas partes difíceis ou deleitar-nos de novo com as passagens que nos agradaram particularmente. São produzidos em massa a um preço relativamente baixo. E a própria leitura é uma actividade espantosa: olhamos para um objecto delgado e liso feito de uma árvore como vocês estão a fazer neste momento, e a voz do autor começa a falar dentro da vossa cabeça (olá!). O progresso do conhecimento humano e o potencial de sobrevivência decorrente da interacção escrita foram imensos. (…) Em resumo, a invenção da escrita deve ser considerada não só como uma brilhante inovação, mas como uma vantagem inexcedível para a humanidade". Pág. 239
  
  Reconheço, em absoluto, o mérito deste homem tão sábio e louvo a sua capacidade em chegar a todo o género de indivíduos com a sua escrita simples e clara.
  
  Efectivamente parece que estamos num diálogo permanente; Carl Sagan vai interagindo connosco colocando questões por forma a reflectirmos sobre o tema versado. Uma narrativa diligente, apelativa e recheada de exemplos para melhor compreensão.
  
  Não obstante, saí da minha zona de conforto; sou de Humanidades e entretanto, diga-se de passagem, já decorreram muitos anos :).
  
  Mas, as minhas filhas lançam-me estes desafios tal como eu as provoco noutros géneros literários e assim o nosso leque de escolhas vai se diversificando.
  
  Confesso que no início fiquei algo assustada ao deparar-me com fórmulas e pormenorizações que me ultrapassavam. Contudo fui prosseguindo na leitura e senti que ia ficando uma linguagem mais acessível e aliciante.
  
  Em todo o caso, o interesse despertado foi flutuando entre o “mais” e o “menos” (culpa minha, fui uma aluna algo desatenta e com a cabeça já noutras andanças).
  
  Em suma, considero que foi uma experiência salutar de ler para aprofundar conhecimentos e evoluir.
  
  Entretanto, concluo que urge a necessidade de eu ceder à minha compulsão de ter de terminar o que inicio a ler; tenho mesmo de “aprender” a ler este tipo de obras, em simultâneo com outro tipo de registo, porque não é propriamente agradável, de madrugada, quando não consigo dormir, pegar em literatura de carácter tecnológico.
  
  Faço intenções, num curto/médio prazo, ler a grande obra deste autor: Cosmos.
• 
  Erik Graff

  Carl Sagan, like Stephen Jay Gould, is one of those scientists gifted as a teacher to non-specialists. This book is about intelligence, a topic both men dealt with, Gould most notably in his Mismeasure of Man. Sagan, however, deals with all intelligence, ending his book with a discussion of nonhuman intelligences, most particularly certain Cetaceans and primates. Noting that chimpanzees and gorillas appear to be intellectually comparable to human five-year-olds, he ends with a plea to extend some of the rights we afford our own children to members of other intelligent species.
  
  I read this book outside at the Ennui Cafe on Sheridan and Lunt in East Rogers Park, Chicago. The weather was beautiful, the lake perfect.
• 
  Jimmy

  Any book on the brain written in the 70s is going to be outdated. For example, Sagan wasn't sure if different parts of the brain affected different things. But an enjoyable read.
  
  He does make one important point clear early on: the "mind" is just a function of the brain. Dualists who think they are two different things are flat out wrong. I have had people look me straight in the eye without even blinking and say that if a person's brain were destroyed, their mind would still function normally. That's always an end-of-discussion comment for me.
• 
  Ivana Books Are Magic

  I do read non- fiction occasionally, you know. When I do, these are the kind of books I want to be reaching for: educating and fascinating. Dragons of Eden: Speculations on Evolution of Human Intelligence is exactly what the title suggest. If you're interested in evolution, this book is a great choice. It is not very specific, it is more a series of essays but it is easy to read and understand.
  Indeed, what I like so much about this book is that it is so easily understandable. Sagan must have been a talented teacher; he clearly has a talent for transmitting knowledge. Plus, Sagan obviously had an interesting and curious mind. The way the book was written is simple, but the matters addressed are anything but. There are a lot of complex questions hiding in this book. Evolution as such, the human brain development and the intelligence are some of the topics explored. Since these are the all topics, I always found interesting, it is understandable that I quite liked this book. I don't have some great background knowledge about biology and evolution as such, yet there was not anything that I have not understood in the book. As I said, the book is easy to understand.
  
  Intelligence and brain evolution is a fascination topic. How did the human brain develop? However, what I liked most about this book was the question of intelligence in animals. That for me is one of the most fascinating themes. I something feel people invent definitions just to exclude animals from things we call "human". Who can claim animals don't have language when chimps are capable of using sing language? Nevertheless, in every linguistic book you'll find: “Language is a solely human accomplishment...." I don't think it is. I really don't. I think that some highly evolved apes such as chimps and orangutans are perfectly capable of acquiring a language. There are apes that have learned sign language. You cannot take that accomplishment from them, not unless you want to say that sign language isn't a real language. It obviously is, and those apes are using it, so they are quite clearly, capable of mastering a language.
  
• 
  João Barradas

  Depois do Big Bang, o Universo criou-se e, no meio dele (ou não fosse uma das nossas características, a queda irreflectida para o antropocentrismo), a vida tomou forma para criar diferentes espécies, até ao seu refinamento major, designado como "Homo sapiens". De facto, o processo intrincado da evolução das espécies despertou, desde cedo, a curiosidade do Homem, com Charles Darwin a dar um grande empurrão nesta pedra de Sísifo. Sem abandonar o seu querido calendário cósmico, do qual apenas vislumbramos os últimos momentos do último dia do ano, Carlos Sagan pretende dar uma nova roupagem a esta eterna questão.
  Com uma linguagem adaptada ao comum dos mortais, Sagan passa em revista alguns factos interessantes que marcam a nossa essência. A desmesurada quantidade de informação armazenada na memória, que supera aquela contida no ADN (já contando com o chamado lixo genético), é realmente necessária para abarcar tais curiosidades. E a reacção a esta obra requer a interacção orquestrada entre as diferentes partes do cérebro (das intervenientes nas necessidades básicas às responsáveis pelas abstracções, passando pelas que dominam as emoções) e, mais especificamente, as 4 divisões do córtex cerebral, repartidas pelos 2 hemisférios - o esquerdo mais analítico e o direito mais intuitivo, tão diferentes mas tão relacionados (não apenas por essa via rápida chamada corpo caloso) pois um sem o outro estão condenados ao fracasso.
  Destaca-se o aguçado sentido de humor utilizado em várias passagens. O gozo pelo facto de um psiquiatra ter como sobrenome Dement, o estudo probabilístico sobre a oportunidade de engravidar, a explicação da abjecção natural à cor vermelha e a sua utilização quotidiana, a ironia ao comparar o aborto a um simples corte da pele (explicado em termos biotecnológicos) e menosprezo pela esquerda pelo facto de essa ser a mão do asseio. Para além disso, interpreta-se a Bíblia, à luz da ciência, com abordagens interessantes: a perda de comunicação com os animais aquando da oferenda da serpente do pecado e a mistura de línguas imposta em Babel para impedir a comunicação entre os habitantes da torre de Babel e, consequentemente, dificultar o atingir dos céus. Como pontos negativos, aponta-se apenas a fraca tradução com uso de português do Brasil, mesclados com erros e termos arcaicos já em desuso (desculpável, tendo em conta a antiguidade desta edição).
  São ainda ofertadas alguns momentos de reflexão - Qual será o verdadeiro papel do sonho, esse momento de reparação em que os momentos do dia são analisados e filtrados? Estaremos a caminhar para um momento em que o sono seja uma actividade supérflua? As máquinas poderão ser integradas no ser humano sem que a simbiose deturpe em submissão? Só existirá vida na Terra? Este, como outros livros, é pois um objecto que mantém a memória cultural, sem estagnar a evolução humana nem brindar um potencial tradicionalismo conformista de sociedades estáticas. É este o caminho para o futuro e, confiando no teorema da existência, sabemos que ele existe!
• 
  Nandakishore Mridula

  I read this one quite long back... and really loved it at that time. I only remember two things from the book, however.
  
  The first one is where Sagan speculates that God's curse on Eve, "you shall bring forth your children in pain", refers to the increased cranial size of intelligent homo sapiens. It is common knowledge that childbirth in humans is much more painful than in animals because of the larger size of the head due to an enlarged brain: thus, could the story of Eden contain a veiled reference to evolution?
  
  The second is a sentence: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Spoken in the context of missing fossil records, I remember thinking at the time that this could also be applied to God!
• 
  Noha soliman

  استمتعت كعادتى مع كتب الرائع الجميل كارل ساجان
  خاصة فى الفصل الذى ناقش به تعلم الشمبانزى للغة الاشارة
  واطلقت العنان لخيالى لو ان كل الشمبانزى والقردة تعلم لغة الاشارة
  واصبح بيننا وبينهم نوع من التواصل كيف سيكون شكل الحياة الاجتماعية بل الحياة ع الكوكب بعدما يصبح الشمبانزى كبشر ولكن فاقدى القدرة ع الكلام والنطق يمكنهم التعبير بالاشاره
  
  
  كذلك الفصل الذى يتكلم عن المخ والشق الايمن والشق الأيسر للمخ وتأثيرهما ع سلوك الانسان وطرق تفكيره كان ممتع
  
  
  انما المترجم اهدر كثير من متعتى بل ومن استفادتى بالكتاب وكان دائما ما يطاردنى الشك بان هنالك شئ ناقص او شئ تم تجويده وفق ما يرتضيه الكاتب ويؤمن به بعدما ذكر فى مقدمته انه حذف بعض النقاط
  التى يراها هو تعديا للخطوط الحمراء!! وقيم المجتمع!!
  من اعطى له الحق ليفرض وصايته علي كقارئ من حقى معرفة كل كلمه كتبت فى النص الاصلى للكاتب خاصة وانه نص علمى،، وكيف اعطى لنفسه الحق كمترجم ان يحدد ما هو صالح وما هو غير صالح وقابل للحذف وجدوى وعدم جدوى ما قام بحذفه
  
  
  
• 
  Marijan Šiško

  Knjiga je jednostavno nevjerojatna. uz minimalno, ali stvarno minimalno poznavanje anatomije i fiziologije mozga-na razini osnovnoškolske biologije- čitatelj može pratiti razvoj građe i funkcije ljudskog mozga, uz savršeno smisleno i logično objašnjenje naših strahova, ponašanja, snova, uspjeha i neuspjeha. preporučeno svima.
• 
  Mukesh Kumar

  Pure bliss. In the inimitable manner of Carl Sagan, engrossing, enlightening and amusing in equal measure.
• 
  Chris

  "To write a book in a subject so far from one's primary training is at best incautious. But...the temptation was irresistible."

  
  That quote, found in the acknowledgements, sums up both the problems with this work, and also it's ironic charm. You must read this early work of Sagan not as definitive science, but as a prime example of his inimitable ability to connect science to other intellectual concerns such as myth, religion and history, thus stimulating thought in the process.
  
  At least Sagan is completely honest: the subtitle itself indicates these are "speculations" which presumably have not been verified. In fact, the book represents a kind of popular science (really, science itself) not seen much anymore. It takes confidence and a willingness to take criticism and the harsh judgement of history, to produce such a work. It's value is of the highest order: that of creative thinking.
  

  
  "This book itself is an exercise in pattern recognition, and attempts to understand something of the nature and evolution of human intelligence, using clues from a wide variety of sciences and myths. It is in significant part a right-hemisphere activity; and in the course of writing I was repeatedly awakened in the middle of night or in the early hours of the morning by the mild exhilaration of a new insight. But whether the insights are genuine – and I expect many of them will require substantial revision – depends on how well my left hemisphere has functioned." [italics mine]
  

  
  The writing is the usual poetic Sagan style, highly readable and yet capable of conveying deep thoughts. The difficulties, however, are serious. It's hard to know what is speculation, what was accepted as fact in 1977, what has been proved true, and what's been superseded. Read the book to marvel at Sagan's mind, not to learn current knowledge on how the brain works.
  
  I could list many factual things wrong: excessive reliance on the triunal brain (putting too much emphasis on the brains's "reptilian-complex" as a driver of aggressive behavior and everything else anti-intellectual, for example), offering up the wrong theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs (he says it was a supernova explosion: hard to believe that Sagan, himself a planetary scientist, had not even considered in 1977 the now generally accepted asteroid impact theory!), and I could go on at length. But...there really is no reason to point out the errors. Again, the purpose of this book is not to serve as a textbook, but to stimulate thought—to speculate.
  
  The core of the book is his ideas on evolutionary memory, those experiences of proto-humans which to assure species survival were recorded in DNA. This is controversial, for sure, but it's curious how he links several creation myths—Greek, Genesis—to "dragons," which he defines as now-extinct larger, more dangerous reptiles which preyed upon mammals, including humans. "We are descended from reptiles and mammals both. In the daytime repression of the R-complex, in the nighttime stirring of the dream dragons, we may each of us be replaying the hundred-million-year-old warfare between the reptiles and the mammals." Maybe he's suggesting these were actually dinosaurs, maybe not, but he is suggesting some sort of evolutionary survival memory preserved to assist success, such as fear of snakes. This following should give you a flavor of the book. He's stretching mightily to merge poetry with science:
  

  
  "The pervasiveness of dragon myths in the folk legends of many cultures is probably no accident. ... Is it possible that dragons posed a problem for our protohuman ancestors of a few million years ago, and that the terror they evoked and the deaths they caused helped bring about the evolution of human intelligence? Or does the metaphor of the serpent refer to the use of the aggressive and ritualistic reptilian component of our brain in the further evolution of the neocortex? With one exception, the Genesis account of the temptation by a reptile in Eden is the only instance in the Bible of humans understanding the language of animals. When we feared the dragons, were we fearing a part of ourselves? One way or another, there were dragons in Eden."
  

  
  Only Sagan could get away with this poetic image and remain scientific: from almost any other it would be pseudo-science; here it is rational speculation, although certainly offered without any proof.
  
  Less seriously, it's fun to read Sagan's view on computers—as of 1977. In almost every book he wrote, he couldn't resist gushing about them! It's possible to string these parts together from his thirty-year-long book publishing career and have a respectable history of computers and their affect on culture and scientific research. Dragons of Eden is a humorous gem in this regard, as, for example: "The computer terminal is a commonplace on the Dartmouth campus. A very high proportion of Dartmouth undergraduates learn not only to use such programs but also to write their own." I remember very well the vast rooms full of terminals which all the students used, it felt almost like prison at times!
  
  I intend no criticism, but the extended excerpt below is, shall we say, embarrassing in its outright geekiness. You probably won't be able to resist laughing at his amazement with the invention of computer games, now so completely endemic:
  

  
  "Computer graphics are now being extended into the area of play. There is a popular game, sometimes called Pong, which simulates on a television screen a perfectly elastic ball bouncing between two surfaces. Each player is given a dial that permits him to intercept the ball with a movable "racket." Points are scored if the motion of the ball is not intercepted by the racket. The game is very interesting. There is a clear learning experience involved which depends exclusively on Newton's second law for linear motion. As a result of Pong, the player can gain a deep intuitive understanding of the simplest Newtonian physics…"
  

  
  Although his book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1978, Dragons of Eden can no longer be recommended to the general reader. It has aged far too much to be reliable. Still, it retains much interest and beauty for the dedicated Carl Sagan fan.
• 
  Mohamedridha Alaskari محمد رضا العسكري

  كتاب علمي رائع وممتع ومسل بكل صفحة من صفحاته.. معلومات قيمة عن الإنسان وعن العقل البشري، ادهشني الكاتب بهذا الكم الهائل من المعلومات من ��هة وجهة اخرى بسلاسة طرح هذه المعلومات!
  ياله من عالم رائع