Robust scholarship, important insights

The topic of this book is important and engaging, though it is certainly geared toward a specialist reader in the field of cognitive evolutionary psychology, which I am not, rather than an educated generalist. So, I had to listen hard, and the clipped, British narration didn't always make that easy going. However, I learned much about cultural evolution and how it shapes human thought and practice in many important ways. I would need to read the printed text to better follow along with the complexity of Heyes's arguments, but I have nonetheless been intrigued by what ideas I have been able to glean through this listen as they apply, for instance, to gender relations, politics, and learning in general.

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Coherent theory of the developing mind

This book is not for the layman, but is still accessible. It describes the theory of cultural evolutionary psychology a.k.a "cognitive gadgets". The theory describes how the distinctively human characteristics of the mind (literacy, numeracy, language, mirroring, mind reading) can be developed from general purpose structures. This is divergent from other theories that rely more on cognitive instincts (genetics) to describe these same characteristics of the mind.

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Nothing

I got nothing out of this book. Idk the reader was very dull to me

Cognitive Gadgets

Hard to track with. Lots of domain specific terms used successively. I found myself zoning out a lot. Perhaps it was simply too erudite for me, I don't know. I do love a good Chomsky take down though.

Excellent narration though.