Humans in the Making: In the Beginning was Technique

The human specificity can be described by verticality/bipedalism, technique use, articulated language, high cognitive capacities, complex society at three levels: body, mind, social. In this book, is proposed an evolutionary process that make better understand how such humanity could have emerged in the long time (more than 6 million years). The process is based on a very early necessity to use technic for surviving correlated with neoteny which impulsed a darwinian evolutionary process, with four distinguished punctuation described as neotenizations.

Table of Contents:
Introduction ix Part 1. Phylogenetics of the Emergence of Humans 1 Chapter 1. The Long and Slow Emergence of Humans 3 1.1. The difficulty of thinking about the beginning of the human being 3 1.2. The current challenge of human construction 7 Chapter 2. Technique and Becoming Human 9 2.1. A general definition of technique 9 2.2. Awareness and use of techniques 13 2.3. Technical posture in human phylogenesis 14 Chapter 3. Ethology: Technique and the Frog 17 3.1. The Goliath frog: a technician frog 17 3.2. Causes for the Goliath frog’s gigantic size 18 Chapter 4. Neoteny: From Concept to Grand Narrative 19 4.1. Sources of the concept of neoteny in biology 19 4.2. Applying the concept of neoteny to the human being 20 4.3. Appropriation of the concept of neo-neoteny by the humanities 22 4.4. Neotenization: a “grand narrative” of the emergence of the human being 24 Chapter 5. Issues of Neoteny and Technique 27 5.1. A very old conception of human “disabilities” 27 5.2. The equipped human and neotenic human: two unrelated concepts 28 5.3. The philosophy of technique: a recent discipline 30 Chapter 6. Neoteny and Fetal Consciousness 33 6.1. Humans before birth 33 6.2. Humanity of the baby at birth 35 6.3. Ancient protection of the human baby at birth 36 Chapter 7. Inversion of the Analysis: The Lamarckian Bias 39 7.1. The ambiguous concept of adaptation 39 7.2. The uselessness of adaptation with the concept of natural selection 41 7.3. The use of a tool: a selective system 43 7.4. From tool-based technique to body-based technique 44 7.5. New evolutionary narratives 46 Chapter 8. Animal Behavior: Hermit Crabs and Their Shells 51 8.1. The hermit crab: a strange crustacean 51 8.2. The hermit crab: an oblivious technician? 52 Chapter 9. Prejudice About the Priority of Values 55 9.1. The human sense of morality: an exception? 55 9.2. Prioritizing cognitive ability in human characteristics 56 9.3. Role of technique in the emergence of language 58 Chapter 10. The First Phase of the Hominization Process 61 10.1. The conditions of access to humans through technique 61 10.2. Verticality as the first pre-human technical experience 66 10.3. The consequences of verticality 78 Chapter 11. Towards the Verticalization of the Genus Homo 83 11.1. Aging of technical achievements 83 11.2. Phylogenesis of characteristics and lineages 88 11.3. From Australopithecus to the genus Homo: the selection of technicality 94 Chapter 12. Technical Evolution and Neoteny of the Genus Homo 101 12.1. Homo habilis: a new bushy development? 101 12.2. Homo erectus, the advent of a technical humanity 106 12.3. Homo sapiens, the advent of inner life and the imaginary 113 Part 2. Technique and Human Ontology 127 Chapter 13. Technique as the Foundation of the Human Being 129 13.1. A look back at stone-knapping: the contribution of neuroscience 129 13.2. Explaining humans through technique: a conceptual error 132 13.3. Mental exaptation as a norm of human development 136 13.4. The relationship between bodily technique and tool technique 139 13.5. Variability of technical capabilities 145 Chapter 14. The Domestication of the Wolf: A Decisive Advantage? 149 14.1. The oldest domestication 149 14.2. The co-evolution of humans and dogs 150 14.3. The strength of the association between humans and dogs 154 Chapter 15. Reforming Our Thinking About Humans? 157 15.1. The human characteristic: a search without a future? 157 15.2. The major innovation in body techniques 159 15.3. Technique and the game: a fundamental intertwining factor 163 15.4. New accounts of the emergence of culture 165 15.5. The influence of techniques on evolutionary processes 169 15.6. The relationship between technical behavior and biological evolution 174 15.7. The selection of neoteny 180 15.8. Towards the human being: convergences and co-evolutions 187 15.9. Homo sapiens, a convergence of multiple capacities 191 15.10. The ultimate technical step towards the human: mental technique 196 15.11. The technical inscription of the mind 204 15.12. The construction of thought 205 Chapter 16. Emergence, Then Global Expansion 207 16.1. Rapid global development 207 16.2. Great linguistic diversification 208 16.3. Co-evolution of cultures, languages and techniques 208 16.4. The anthropization of the planet 209 Chapter 17. The Myth of the Golden Age 211 17.1. The Golden Age in ancient myths 211 17.2. The Golden Age of modern thinkers 213 17.3. Believing in a golden age: a cognitive bias? 214 Conclusion 217 References 225 Index 243

About the Author :
Michel J.F. Dubois was Director of Agriculture at the Institut polytechnique UniLaSalle, France, until 2016. He now conducts research as part of the InterACT team at the Institut polytechnique UniLaSalle in sustainable development and innovation in agriculture. He is an agronomist engineer and holds a PhD in biology, as well as a PhD and a habilitation in philosophy.