Explaining Humans

By Camilla Pang,

Book cover of Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us About Life, Love and Relationships

Book description

WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 2020

How proteins, machine learning and molecular chemistry can teach us about the complexities of human behaviour and the world around us

How do we understand the people around us? How do we recognise people's motivations, their behaviour, or even…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Explaining Humans as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Explaining Humans engagingly begins, “It was five years into my life on Earth that I started to think I’d landed in the wrong place. I must have missed the stop.”

Part popular science, part memoir, part clarion call for neuroinclusion, Pang’s book is full of sophisticated and memorable observations about humans, neurodiversity, and Pang’s own neurodivergence.

I particularly enjoyed her comparison of the teamwork between human cells (neutral, effective, politics-free!) with that of typical human collaboration…and how much it made me realize that we can all substantially improve the latter at work to get the best out of each other…

Sometimes, a voice actor is the absolute right choice for an audiobook. (I think this was the case for my book, which was read by George Newbern — whose voice I quickly recognized as the cartoon Superman.) Other times, though, absolutely nobody but the actual author will do, and this is most certainly the case with Camilla Pang’s beautifully written — and narrated — book about human behavior. I’ve both read and listened to Explaining Humans, and I recommend the latter, for Pang’s particular manner of emphasis, inflection, and cadence add color, clarity, and personality to her written words.…

From Matthew's list on for feeling awestruck about the world.

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