Homo biologicalus

The revolution is in biology. Now it can explain who—and why—we are who we believe we are: our subjectivity, our personality, our worldviews.

Since the emergence of Homo sapiens on the great ape evolutionary tree and the unparalleled cognitive revolution it represented fifty thousand years ago, our species' ability to understand and modify the environment seems limitless. Yet the mystery of human nature remains unfathomable. Who we truly are and what moves us defy rationality.

Homo Biologicus offers a new perspective on human nature based on the discoveries of biology over the last century, which have often gone unnoticed because they seem irrelevant in isolation. Only when they are connected and viewed as a whole, as in this book, are their revolutionary implications revealed.

Biology is like us, multipotent, ever-changing, continually redefined by the most subtle experience. Now it can explain not only the how, but also the why of humanity: why we seek freedom and order at the same time; why we are the most futile species, yet we think we are superior to all others; why, instead of moving forward, we go in circles, oscillating between opposing visions of reality: democracy or totalitarianism, spirituality or materialism, balance or excess.

Homo biologicus allows us to finally understand why we do what we do and find unforeseen solutions to many challenges facing human civilization: from ideological extremism to the energy crisis, from obesity epidemics to the war on drugs. Contrary to all expectations, it is biology that can finally give universal meaning to life and initiate a new conversation about the future of our species.