Sign-In
Cart
The Handicap Principle: A Missing Piece of Darwin's Puzzle
Paperback
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0195129148
ISBN13: 9780195129144
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Jun 3 1999
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.96
Height: 0.82 Width: 6.12 Depth: 9.18
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780195129144
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Jun 3 1999
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.96
Height: 0.82 Width: 6.12 Depth: 9.18
Language: English
Ever since Darwin, animal behavior has intrigued and perplexed human observers. The elaborate mating rituals, lavish decorative displays, complex songs, calls, dances and many other forms of animal signaling raise fascinating questions. To what degree can animals communicate within their own species and even between species? What evolutionary purpose do such communications serve? Perhaps most importantly, what can animal signaling tell us about our own non-verbal forms of communication? In The Handicap Principle, Amotz and Ashivag Zahavi offer a unifying theory that brilliantly explains many previously baffling aspects of animal signaling and holds up a mirror in which ordinary human behaviors take on surprising new significance.
The wide-ranging implications of the Zahavis' new theory make it arguably the most important advance in animal behavior in decades. Based on 20 years of painstaking observation, the Handicap Principle illuminates an astonishing variety of signaling behaviors in animals ranging from ants and ameba to peacocks and gazelles. Essentially, the theory asserts that for animal signals to be effective they must be reliable, and to be reliable they must impose a cost, or handicap, on the signaler. When a gazelle sights a wolf, for instance, and jumps high into the air several times before fleeing, it is signaling, in a reliable way, that it is in tip-top condition, easily able to outrun the wolf. (A human parallel occurs in children's games of tag, where faster children will often taunt their pursuer before running). By momentarily handicapping itself--expending precious time and energy in this display--the gazelle underscores the truthfulness of its signal. Such signaling, the authors suggest, serves the interests of both predator and prey, sparing each the exhaustion of a pointless chase. Similarly, the enormous cost a peacock incurs by carrying its elaborate and weighty tail-feathers, which interfere with food gathering, reliably communicates its value as a mate able to provide for its offspring. Perhaps the book's most important application of the Handicap Principle is to the evolutionary enigma of animal altruism. The authors convincingly demonstrate that when an animal acts altruistically, it handicaps itself--assumes a risk or endures a sacrifice--not primarily to benefit its kin or social group but to increase its own prestige within the group and thus signal its status as a partner or rival. Finally, the Zahavis' show how many forms of non-verbal communication among humans can also be explained by the Handicap Principle. Indeed, the authors suggest that non-verbal signals--tones of voice, facial expressions, body postures--are quite often more reliable indicators of our intentions than is language.
Elegantly written, exhaustively researched, and consistently enlivened by equal measures of insight and example, The Handicap Principle illuminates virtually every kind of animal communication. It not only allows us to hear what animals are saying to each other--and to understand why they are saying it--but also to see the enormously important role non-verbal behavior plays in human communication.
Elegantly written, exhaustively researched, and consistently enlivened by equal measures of insight and example, The Handicap Principle illuminates virtually every kind of animal communication. It not only allows us to hear what animals are saying to each other--and to understand why they are saying it--but also to see the enormously important role non-verbal behavior plays in human communication.
Also in
Biology
The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution
Hockfield, Susan
Paperback
$17.05
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Paperback
$18.00
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
$27.00
Beyond Inheritance: Our Ever-Mutating Cells and a New Understanding of Health
Khamsi, Roxanne
Hardcover
$28.50
The Biology of Trauma: How the Body Holds Fear, Pain, and Overwhelm, and How to Heal It
Apigian, Aimie
Hardcover
$26.96
Go Forth and Forage: A Guide to Foraging Over 50 of the Most Common Edible & Medicinal North American Mushrooms
Johnson, Whitney
Paperback
$23.74
Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression about Brain Damage from Childhood Vaccines
de Becker, Gavin
Hardcover
$31.34
The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Riskin, Jessica
Hardcover
$28.80
Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us
Belluz, Julia
Hall, Kevin, PhD
Hardcover
$28.50
The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All
Ashwood, Frank
Hardcover
$28.50
Ernst Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature: A Visual Masterpiece of the Natural World
Haeckel, Ernst
Hardcover
$48.74
History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery
Kurin, Richard
Hardcover
$33.25
Fungi Decoded: Adventures in the Mycosphere--Encounters with Thirty Fungi
Bunyard, Britt A.
Paperback
$17.99
Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations
Hooper, Rowan
Hardcover
$31.50
The Whole Truth: The Hidden Agendas Behind Decades of Health Misinformation--And What to Do about It
Campbell, Nelson
Campbell, T. Colin
Hardcover
$26.55
Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark
Henion, Leigh Ann
Hardcover
$28.50
The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics
Olshaker, Mark
Osterholm, Michael T.
Hardcover
$27.00
Peterson Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America, Second Edition
Rohrer, Joseph R.
McKnight Ward, Kirsten
McKnight, Karl B.
Paperback
$24.69
Princeton Review AP Biology Premium Prep, 29th Edition: 6 Practice Tests + Digital Practice Online + Content Review
The Princeton Review
Paperback
$26.59
Bioinspired: How Nature Made Us Modern, Drives Today's Technological Innovation, and Inspires a Future Worth Inventing
Stier, Samuel Cord
Hardcover
$33.25
A Year with the Seals: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea's Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures
Morris, Alix
Hardcover
$28.50
Cells at Work! Picture Book 1: The Great Bacteria vs. White Blood Cell Battle!
Makimura, Kumi
Hardcover
$13.29
VAX Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life
Thomas, Paul
Hoover, Deedee
Paperback
$25.60
The Gut-Brain Paradox: Improve Your Mood, Clear Brain Fog, and Reverse Disease by Healing Your Microbiome
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
$30.40
Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide: A Handbook for Psilocybin Enthusiasts
Oss, O. T.
Oeric, O. N.
Paperback
$18.00
All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes
Black, Sue
Paperback
$18.04
The Aesthetic Revolution: Embracing Vanity and the Future of Fitness to Unlock Your Healthiest Self
Israetel, Mike
Hardcover
$28.50
National Geographic the Photo Ark: One Man's Quest to Document the World's Animals
Sartore, Joel
Chadwick, Douglas H.
Hardcover
$33.25
True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradis
McKenna, Terence
Paperback
$17.09
Pull: How Gravity Shapes Your Body, Steadies the Mind, and Guides Our Health
Spiegel, Brennan
Hardcover
$28.50
Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California
Siegel, Noah
Schwarz, Christian
Paperback
$33.25
Psilocybin Mushrooms: A Comprehensive Guide to Growing and Using Psychedelic Mushrooms
Madden, Michael
Paperback
$14.24
The Life Machines: How Taking Care of Your Mitochondria Can Transform Your Health
Mochly-Rosen, Daria
Rosen, Emanuel
Hardcover
$27.55
Princeton Review AP Biology Premium Prep, 28th Edition: 6 Practice Tests + Digital Practice Online + Content Review
The Princeton Review
Paperback
$26.59
The Little Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Guide to the Extraordinary Power of Mushrooms
Dorr, Alex
Hardcover
From $11.99
Fungi of Temperate Europe: Keys to the Basidiomycotes
Læssøe, Thomas
Petersen, Jens H.
Frøslev, Tobias G.
Hardcover
$90.25
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Hardcover
$28.50
Mushrooming: An Illustrated Guide to the Fantastic, Delicious, Deadly, and Strange World of Fungi
Borsato, Diane
Hardcover
$23.70
The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (Including Coronavirus) Are Not the Cause of Disease
Cowan, Thomas S.
Fallon Morell, Sally
Hardcover
$31.34
Mushrooms of Cascadia, Second Edition: An Illustrated Key to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest
Beug, Michael
Paperback
$26.60
From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage
National Museum of Natural History
Hardcover
$18.95
How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi: Collected Quirks of Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math from Nerd Nite
Balakrishnan, Chris
Wasowski, Matt
Paperback
$19.00
Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes
Lents, Nathan H.
Paperback
$17.09
The Ocean's Menagerie: How Earth's Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life
Harvell, Drew
Hardcover
$28.80
The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life
Willis, Jon
Hardcover
$24.70
The Mycocultural Revolution: Transforming Our World with Mushrooms, Lichens, and Other Fungi
McCoy, Peter
Hardcover
$17.05
Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We're Disrupting Them
Gander, Philippa
Hardcover
$21.80
Field Notes from a Fungi Forager: An Illustrated Journey Through the World of Pacific Northwest Mushrooms
Rodriguez, Ashley
Hardcover
$21.80
The Art and Science of Foodpairing: 10,000 Flavour Matches That Will Transform the Way You Eat
Lahousse, Bernard
Langenbick, Johan
Coucquyt, Peter
Hardcover
$47.45
National Audubon Society Wildflowers of North America: The Complete Identification Reference to Wildflowers--With Full-Color Photographs; Updated Rang
National Audubon Society
Hardcover
$37.95
The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
Watson, James D.
Paperback
$18.99
Sea Wonders: The Octopus, the Cuttlefish, and the Squid
Colombo, Marco
Tomasinelli, Francesco
Hardcover
$18.95
The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer's Crimes Against Humanity
The Warroom/Dailyclout Pfizer Documents Analysts
Hardcover
$37.99
Gut Check: Unleash the Power of Your Microbiome to Reverse Disease and Transform Your Mental, Physical, and Emotional Health
Gundry MD, Steven R.
Hardcover
$30.40
If the Ocean Has a Soul: A Marine Biologist's Pursuit of Truth Through Deep Waters of Faith and Science
Jordan, Rachel G.
Paperback
$18.04
Understanding Ampicillin: Understanding Ampicillin: Indications, Administration, And Drug Interactions
Caldwell, Ethan
Paperback
$11.99
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
$20.89