Ben Waber reviewed Human Errors by Nathan Lents
A Fascinating but Limited Look at Human Physical Inefficiencies
4 stars
This book shines in the sections on the physical aspects of humans, revealing how the inherent nature of evolution drove incremental optimization into our current form that leaves a lot to be desired. This is made most clear when drawing parallels to other animals, with the visual system and our capacity to produce certain nutrients being laughably suboptimal compared to others. Lents does stumble a bit when it comes to cognition and neuroscience more broadly, since the "errors" highlighted here are at best strongly disputed and at worst not even errors. That being said, this is still an extremely informative, delightful read. Highly recommend
This book shines in the sections on the physical aspects of humans, revealing how the inherent nature of evolution drove incremental optimization into our current form that leaves a lot to be desired. This is made most clear when drawing parallels to other animals, with the visual system and our capacity to produce certain nutrients being laughably suboptimal compared to others. Lents does stumble a bit when it comes to cognition and neuroscience more broadly, since the "errors" highlighted here are at best strongly disputed and at worst not even errors. That being said, this is still an extremely informative, delightful read. Highly recommend