Books

The 2024 Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution, edited by me, Andy Lock, and Chris Sinha is a follow up of the 1996 edition composed by Andy Lock and Charles Peters. 

The handbook explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life. Written by world leading experts, thirty-eight topical chapters are grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic evolution. 

Read here my twin papers on The evolution of the biological sciences and The evolution of the symbolic sciences. The editorial introduction on Current topics and debates in human symbolic evolution is available here. 

Volume 3 in the IDER-Series is an anthology I edited on Reticulate Evolution: Symbiogenesis, Later Gene Transfer, Hybridization, and Infectious Heredity. The book was published in 2015.

The book is an output of an evolution school on reticulate evolution that I chaired in 2013 at the Ciencia Viva Agency in Lisbon with the support of the John Tempelton Foundation. Scholars active in molecular genetics, virology, botany, developmental biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, history and philosophy of science step outside their areas of research to provide accessible introductions on the various ways whereby genes, organisms, and species not only evolve through vertical descent with modification as predicted by the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, but through engaging in numerous horizontal interactions throughout an organism's lifetime. During these horizontal interactions, genes, symbionts, and other forms of matter and energy are exchanged with one another and within the economy of nature and these impact both health and disease as well as long-term evolution.

The editorial introduction titled Reticulate Evolution Everywhere and my chapter on Historical and Epistemological Perspectives on What Horizontal Gene Transfer Mechanisms Contribute to Our Understanding of Evolution can be consulted here. In the latter paper I provide five reasons for why evolutionary biologists have had a hard time in recognizing the importance of horizontal gene transfer. Although the mechanisms were already known at the beginning of the 20th century, the importance and widespread occurrence of horizontal gene transfer is only becoming recognized today, in part because the sciences are now finally able to make evolutionary sense of them.

The second book in the IDER series, published in 2015, is an anthology that I co-edited with Emanuele Serrelli on Macroevolution: Explanation, Interpretation and Evidence. 

The book is an output of an evolution school on macroevolution that I chaired in 2013 at the Ciencia Viva Agency in Lisbon with the support of the John Tempelton Foundation. Scholars active in evolutionary biology, genetics, geology, paleontology, history and philosophy of science provide their unique understanding of macroevolutionary research, how it theoretically and practically relates to and diverges from standard Neo-Darwinian practices.

The introduction to the book, titled Macroevolutionary Issues and Approaches in Evolutionary Biology, and my chapter on Uniting Micro- with Macroevolution into an Extended Synthesis: Reintegrating Life’s Natural History into Evolution Studies can be read here. The latter paper explains how the micro- and macroevolutionary research schools endorse opposing research cultures, with the former favoring mechanical explanations and the latter historical explanations to explain the evolution of life. Combining both cultures enables for a richer understanding of evolution.

The first book in the IDER series, published in 2014, is an anthology that I co-edited with Marco Pina on The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates, a Multidisciplinary Approach. 

The book is an outgrowth of a conference I chaired at the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon on the evolutionary relation between primate communication and human language and the different ways there are whereby experts from various disciplines, such as primatology, linguistics, anthropology, cognitive science, and philosophy investigate their connection. 

The introduction to the book, titled Studying Social Communication in Primates: From Ethology and Comparative Zoology to Social Primatology, Evolutionary Psychology, and Evolutionary Linguistics, can be read here.

Published in 2006, the anthology on Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture: A Non-Adaptationist, Systems Theoretical Approach is a spin-off from a conference on the topic I chaired with the financial support of the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science and the Center Leo Apostel at the Dutch Free University of Brussels in 2004. 

It was the first time that a book volume on evolutionary epistemology focused on language and culture rather than behavior and cognition, as well as on how language and culture can be approached from within evolutionary theories that surpass the tenets of the Modern Synthesis.

The Introduction to Evolutionary Epistemology, Language and Culture and my paper on Evolutionary epistemology and the origin and evolution of language: Taking symbiogenesis seriously can be consulted here. The latter paper pioneered in pointing out that the reticulate or network-like aspects of language contact and language borrowing resemble the way in which organisms horizontally exchange genes, symbionts, and other forms of matter and energy. Such parallel processes are now well-recognized and parse and parcel of scientific study. 

My second book is co-edited by Katrien Mondt. Tanslated to English, it is titled Dynamic Inter- and Transdisciplinary Language Research: The New Language Sciences. 

The book was published in 2006 as an outgrowth of a think-tank that Katrien and I directed on language research. The book features written versions of invited talks by Flemish and Dutch linguists, anthropologists, computer scientists, and philosophers of science who contemplate the nature of language and the different ways there are to study it. The book is out of print but the electronic version is available here. 

Beyond the editorial introduction On the New Language Sciences, I wrote a chapter for the book titled The Origin of Language: Is it a question for Philosophy, Linguistics, Anthropology, or Biology? I conclude that a multidisciplinary stance is needed.

My first book, published in 2004, translates to English as On the Origin and Evolution of Life: 15 From the Standard Paradigm Deviating Theses. 

It was the first Dutch book published on the newly emerging evolutionary biology. The work details how origin of life problems, symbiogenesis, and punctuated equilibria deviate from the standard Neo-Darwinian paradigm. 

The volume is a revised version of my Master thesis in Philosophy of Science that I defended in 2001. My thesis supervisors, Philip Polk and Jean Paul Van Bendegem wrote a foreword and afterword for the book. The book is out of print but a transcript can be downloaded here.