This book seemed 50/50 on some of the science it was using vs. some of the science it was taking liberties with.... a lot of it seemed to be more hypothesis than actual facts.

There were some good parts of the book though - the autism section was interesting...

This book is part paleoanthropology, part neuroscience. It's well written, easy to read, and full of relatable stories.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

<i>How the Mind Changed: A Human History of Our Evolving Brain</i> by Joseph Jebelli is billed as a pop-sci book on the evolution of the human brain. And Jebelli does initially make an effort to cover human brain evolution, but after a few chapters his focus wanes. Before even beginning to develop this complex topic with sufficient depth and nuance, he begins spinning through topics, delivering chapters on autism spectrum disorders, psychometrics, and brain-computer interfaces. These topics are of course related to the evolution of the brain and have sustained whole books themselves, but they are peripheral to the Jebelli's purported central theme. These are also topics that should be discussed after robustly establishing the narrative of human brain evolution. His work is just too thin to justify the special topics. Jebelli cheats the full scope of evolution by starting immediately with the early primate brain and then mentioning a few genetic and morphological adaptations that contributed to brain expansion. Then, poof! Humans! Even to most lay readers, this narrative will likely feel flimsy.

Jebelli's musings are not only haphazard about the complex science of brain evolution, but also weirdly polemical in unscientific ways. Of course, some of the position-staking-out is warranted. For instance, Jebelli provides a pithy argument for materialism, debunking mind-body dualism and casual understandings of "free will." This is consistent with the empirical record and the current state of neuroscience despite being over-simplified (and later seemingly contradicted by Jebelli's comments on other topics including the importance of human agency). However, on intelligence and autism, Jebelli veers wildly into science denialism and advocacy. For instance, he dismisses mainstream psychometrics and essentially endorses the rigorously debunked theory of multiple intelligences (see Waterhouse 2010 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4104_1). He also severely misunderstands or misrepresents the nature of autism and the purposes of autism research. For example, he incorrectly claims there is not a female protective effect against autism, arguing that Simon Baren-Cohen's systematizing "extreme male brain" model has been overturned. This is inconsistent with up-to-date research published in high-impact journals (See the Sebat lab's recent paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-022-01064-5). Plus, he makes incredibly sloppy claims about the role of autism in the evolution of the human brain and economic development; these claims are patently inconsistent with how evolutionary theory is understood and tested and is almost entirely without empirical support.

There are of course some interesting tidbits in <i>How the Brain Changed<i>, but they are overwhelmed by discount Gladwellism (i.e. a glibness about complex topics done in an engaging style or as Appleyard states "the hard sell of a big theme supported by dubious, incoherent but dramatically presented evidence") and stealth demagoguery cloaked in the veneer of scientific respectability. Human brain evolution is a serious and important topic that all educated people should try to understand. For a good lay introduction and alternative to this book, I recommend checking out Bret Stetka's <i>A History of the Human Brain: From the Sea Sponge to CRISPR, How Our Brain Evolved</i>. It is a more sustained and balanced work that is also accessible to a lay audience.

**Disclosure: I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley.

So neuroscience is fun. I read this because of the evolution aspect and learning more about the cognitive abilities of early primates, but I ended up really liking the whole book. The author definitely thinks he's smarter than all of his readers, but he's probably right. The autism chapter was wonderful, it made me feel so seen.

I've been trying to read more nonfiction books and in doing so have found that there tend to be 2 distinct writing styles within the genre: (1) dense, dreadful, and makes me feel like I'm in a terrible high school class or (2) accessible, interesting, thought-provoking, and maybe even a little fun/funny. Luckily, How the Mind Changed falls into the second category. Author and neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli received a PhD in neuroscience from University College London for his work on the cell biology of neurodegenerative diseases, then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Washington. He pairs examples of scientific evidence with great storytelling skills. I found lots of parts very interesting, for example, this tidbit had me really thinking.

"And a single mutation is all it takes: if a mutant organism produces just 1 per cent more offspring than its non-mutant rivals, it leaps from representing 0.1 per cent of the population to 99.9 per cent in just 4,000 generations, a mere 100,000 years."

This was an absolutely fascinating read. I love neuropsychology and brain health so this was right up my alley. The author wrote a compelling book regarding the brain and it's functions in an easy, accessible way

I enjoyed this book. It is a fun, well-written story that was hard to put down. I found it easy to read, with its conversational tone and clearly-explained science. I also enjoyed the author’s anecdotes. Although the section wasn’t long, the discussion of consciousness is one of the best I’ve read. I also liked how the book uses stories of people to initiate discussion. I also appreciated the discussion of what may come. A lot of books fall down at this point, but this one stayed true to the rest of the book. This is a book that is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for the advance reader copy.