Survival of the Friendliest: Why We Love Insiders and Hate Outsiders, and How We Can Rediscover Our Common Humanity

Author: Brian HarePublisher: Random HouseHardcover:ISBN 10: 0399590668ISBN 13: 978-0399590665A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our unique friendliness is the secret to our success as a species. For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened? Since Charles Darwin wrote about “evolutionary fitness,” the idea of fitness has been confused with physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. In fact, what made us evolutionarily fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, a virtuosic ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. Advancing what they call the “self-domestication theory,” Brian Hare, professor in the departm