{"title":"R Alexander Bentley","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"i-ll-have-what-she-s-having-book-r-alexander-bentley-9780262016155","title":"I'll Have What She's Having","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow we learn from those around us: an essential guide to understanding how people behave.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003eHumans are, first and foremost, social creatures. And this, according to the authors of \u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e, shapes--and explains--most of our choices. We're not just blindly driven by hard-wired instincts to hunt or gather or reproduce; our decisions are based on more than \"nudges\" exploiting individual cognitive quirks.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e shows us how we use the brains of others to think for us and as storage space for knowledge about the world. The story zooms out from the individual to small groups to the complexities of populations. It describes, among other things, how buzzwords propagate and how ideas spread; how the swine flu scare became an epidemic; and how focused social learning by a few gets amplified as copying by the masses. It describes how ideas, behavior, and culture spread through the simple means of doing what others do.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt is notoriously difficult to change behavior. For every \"Yes We Can\" political slogan, there are thousands of \"Just Say No\" buttons. \u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e offers a practical map to help us navigate the complex world of social behavior, an essential guide for anyone who wants to understand how people behave and how to begin to change things.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49567284986129,"sku":"GOR004231819","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50346400547089,"sku":"CIN026201615XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51515801600273,"sku":"GOR007394737","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53429076001041,"sku":"CIN026201615XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/026201615X.jpg?v=1750877357"},{"product_id":"handbook-of-archaeological-theories-book-r-alexander-bentley-9780759100336","title":"Handbook of Archaeological Theories","description":"This handbook gathers original, authoritative articles from leading archaeologists to compile the latest thinking about archaeological theory. The authors provide a comprehensive picture of the theoretical foundations by which archaeologists contextualize and analyze their archaeological data. Student readers will also gain a sense of the immense power that theory has for building interpretations of the past, while recognizing the wonderful archaeological traditions that created it. An extensive bibliography is included. This volume is the single most important reference for current information on contemporary archaeological theories.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50181451710737,"sku":"CIN0759100330G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52155417297169,"sku":"CIN0759100330VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52451074474257,"sku":"NLS9780759100336","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0759100330.jpg?v=1750784848"},{"product_id":"acceleration-of-cultural-change-book-r-alexander-bentley-9780262036955","title":"The Acceleration of Cultural Change","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow culture evolves through algorithms rather than knowledge inherited from ancestors.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom our hunter-gatherer days, we humans evolved to be excellent throwers, chewers, and long-distance runners. We are highly social, crave Paleolithic snacks, and display some gendered difference resulting from mate selection. But we now find ourselves binge-viewing, texting while driving, and playing \u003ci\u003eMinecraft\u003c\/i\u003e. Only the collective acceleration of cultural and technological evolution explains this development. The evolutionary psychology of individuals--the drive for food and sex--explains some of our current habits, but our evolutionary success, Alex Bentley and Mike O'Brien explain, lies in our ability to learn cultural know-how and to teach it to the next generation. Today, we are following social media bots as much as we are learning from our ancestors. We are radically changing the way culture evolves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley and O'Brien describe how the transmission of culture has become vast and instantaneous across an Internet of people and devices, after millennia of local ancestral knowledge that evolved slowly. Long-evolved cultural knowledge is aggressively discounted by online algorithms, which prioritize popularity and recency. If children are learning more from \u003ci\u003eMinecraft\u003c\/i\u003e than from tradition, this is a profound shift in cultural evolution.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley and O'Brien examine the broad and shallow model of cultural evolution seen today in the science of networks, prediction markets, and the explosion of digital information. They suggest that in the future, artificial intelligence could be put to work to solve the problem of information overload, learning to integrate concepts over the vast idea space of digitally stored information.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50466944385297,"sku":"CIN0262036959G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50512857334033,"sku":"CIN0262036959VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262036959.jpg?v=1751195370"},{"product_id":"collaborators-through-time-book-r-alexander-bentley-9781538197707","title":"Collaborators through Time","description":"Spanning 2 million years, this book examines how humans partnered with nature, technology, and each other to shape their world, from evolutionary origins and ancient innovations to the rise of artificial intelligence.   This book examines how humans collaborated with other entities, expanding in scale from individuals to other species of Homo, and further to the formation of groups, interactions with organisms, connections with past generations, and the transformative role of technology. Through dozens of vivid examples –from the lives of Neanderthals to the origins of agriculture, the impact of ancient diseases, the practices of shamans, Bronze Age innovations, global trade routes, and the products of the world’s first cities – this narrative illuminates the intricate web of partnerships that defined human history. The final chapter delves into artificial intelligence, illustrating how its evolution mirrors the co-evolution of humans with technologies.   AI’s rapid development of learning and collaborative abilities echoes humanity’s own adaptive journey, albeit at an accelerated pace. Richly illustrated with over 50 full-color figures, this book offers a visually engaging and intellectually stimulating journey through the partnerships that have shaped our world, from the dawn of prehistory to the cutting edge of AI.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52100918149393,"sku":"NGR9781538197707","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781538197707.jpg?v=1770289611"},{"product_id":"acceleration-of-cultural-change-book-r-alexander-bentley-9780262551977","title":"The Acceleration of Cultural Change","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52654972895505,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52654973321489,"sku":"NLS9780262551977","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780262551977.jpg?v=1762218430"},{"product_id":"i-ll-have-what-she-s-having-book-r-alexander-bentley-9780262553803","title":"I'll Have What She's Having","description":"\u003cb\u003eHow we learn from those around us- an essential guide to understanding how people behave.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Humans are, first and foremost, social creatures. And this, according to the authors of \u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e, shapes-and explains-most of our choices. We're not just blindly driven by hard-wired instincts to hunt or gather or reproduce; our decisions are based on more than \"nudges\" exploiting individual cognitive quirks.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e shows us how we use the brains of others to think for us and as storage space for knowledge about the world. The story zooms out from the individual to small groups to the complexities of populations. It describes, among other things, how buzzwords propagate and how ideas spread; how the swine flu scare became an epidemic; and how focused social learning by a few gets amplified as copying by the masses. It describes how ideas, behavior, and culture spread through the simple means of doing what others do.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e It is notoriously difficult to change behavior. For every \"Yes We Can\" political slogan, there are thousands of \"Just Say No\" buttons. \u003ci\u003eI'll Have What She's Having\u003c\/i\u003e offers a practical map to help us navigate the complex world of social behavior, an essential guide for anyone who wants to understand how people behave and how to begin to change things.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52664637063441,"sku":"NLS9780262553803","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-r-alexander-bentley.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}