Books like Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

01

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

Peter Godfrey-Smith · Science

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher of science and a scuba diver who began spending time with octopuses off the coast of Sydney, and Other Minds is the result of that dual perspective.

Shares animal cognition and evolution with Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?.

02

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Sy Montgomery · Science

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist and author who began spending time at the New England Aquarium to get to know a giant Pacific octopus named Athena.

A kindred science read.

03

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

Both dig into evolution.

04

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins · Science

The Selfish Gene reframes evolution from the organism's point of view to the gene's.

Both dig into evolution.

05

The Blind Watchmaker

Richard Dawkins · Science

The Blind Watchmaker is Richard Dawkins's argument that natural selection — cumulative, non-random selection acting on random variation — is sufficient to explain the apparent design in biological organisms.

Both dig into evolution.

06

A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution

Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg · Science

A Crack in Creation is Jennifer Doudna and Samuel Sternberg's account of how CRISPR-Cas9 works, what it can do, and why its possibilities should give everyone pause.

Both dig into evolution.

07

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

Both dig into evolution.

08

Climbing Mount Improbable

Richard Dawkins · Science

Climbing Mount Improbable is Richard Dawkins's response to the persistent intuition that complex biological structures — the vertebrate eye, insect wings, spider webs — are too improbable to have evolved by chance.

Both dig into evolution.

09

Cosmos

Carl Sagan · Science

Cosmos is Carl Sagan's attempt to tell the full story of the universe and humanity's place in it — from the Big Bang to the origins of life to the rise of science as a way of knowing.

Both dig into evolution.

10

From Bacteria to Bach and Back

Daniel C. Dennett · Science

Daniel Dennett's 2017 book is his most comprehensive attempt to explain how minds — conscious, intentional, creative minds — could have evolved from mindless matter without any homunculus, soul, or top-down designer.

Both dig into evolution.

11

Life Ascending

Nick Lane · Science

Life Ascending is Nick Lane's examination of what he calls evolution's ten greatest inventions: the origin of life itself, DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death.

Both dig into evolution.

12

Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human

Matt Ridley · Science

Matt Ridley's central argument is that the nature versus nurture debate has been framed wrong for over a century.

Both dig into evolution.