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Title details for Human Errors by Nathan H. Lents - Available

Human Errors

by Nathan H. Lents
ebook
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A biology professor's "funny, fascinating" tour of the physical imperfections—from faulty knees to junk DNA—that make us human (Discover). 
We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often—two hundred times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? Why is the vast majority of our genetic code pointless? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake?
As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is indeed nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last. The human body is one big pile of compromises. But that is also a testament to our greatness: as Lents shows, humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them. A rollicking, deeply informative tour of humans' four-billion-year-and-counting evolutionary saga, Human Errors both celebrates our imperfections and offers an unconventional accounting of the cost of our success.
"An insightful and entertaining romp through the myriad ways in which the human body falls short of an engineering ideal—and the often-surprising reasons why." —Ian Tattersall, author of The Monkey in the Mirror
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Publisher: HarperCollins

Kindle Book

  • Release date: March 19, 2024

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9781328974679
  • File size: 6829 KB
  • Release date: March 19, 2024

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9781328974679
  • File size: 7514 KB
  • Release date: March 19, 2024
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Kindle Book
OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Science Nonfiction Humor (Nonfiction)

Languages

English

A biology professor's "funny, fascinating" tour of the physical imperfections—from faulty knees to junk DNA—that make us human (Discover). 
We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often—two hundred times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? Why is the vast majority of our genetic code pointless? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake?
As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is indeed nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last. The human body is one big pile of compromises. But that is also a testament to our greatness: as Lents shows, humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them. A rollicking, deeply informative tour of humans' four-billion-year-and-counting evolutionary saga, Human Errors both celebrates our imperfections and offers an unconventional accounting of the cost of our success.
"An insightful and entertaining romp through the myriad ways in which the human body falls short of an engineering ideal—and the often-surprising reasons why." —Ian Tattersall, author of The Monkey in the Mirror
Expand title description text
Science Nonfiction Humor (Nonfiction)
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