The Gambling Animal: Humanitys Evolutionary Winning Streak - and How We Risk It All

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Evolution is a series of bets, and no animal gambles the way humans do. This has led us to unprecedented ecological dominance, via the steepest odds and unlikeliest of outcomes, but our winning streak cuts both ways: the secret to our success may yet be our downfall.

The Gambling Animal offers a revelatory retelling of the human story. Drawing on their unique research into the risk psychology of humans and other animals - including our most impressive rivals, elephants - Don Ross and Glenn Harrison reveal the hidden logic of our rise.

Even before the dawn of civilisation, we bet the Earth on our ability to keep doubling down. But with an ecological crisis on the horizon, how long will our winning streak continue

Reviews

A fascinating tour of risk taking in the natural world, from surviving to socialising -- Adam Kucharski, author of THE PERFECT BET
Weaves together insights from economics and evolutionary science to paint a persuasive picture of how humans' social brains have given us a uniquely powerful but dangerously flawed type of intelligence -- Diane Coyle, author of COGS & MONSTERS
A masterful integration of scientific insights on the human path to ecological domination. Behavioral economics at its best -- George Ainslie, author of BREAKDOWN OF WILL
A ground-breaking exploration of humanity's unique relationship with risk and reward, offering a revolutionary glimpse into the evolutionary patterns of humanity -- John A. List, author of THE VOLTAGE EFFECT
This valuable and highly enjoyable book offers a fresh perspective: human evolution as a story of collective risk management. The Gambling Animal takes us on a tour through the gambles of life, from the survival struggles of early hominids to our high-stakes wager on climate change -- Gerd Gigerenzer, director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development
A sweeping and page-turning story of how humans - and other animals - manage the myriad risks that continually face us. The authors make a compelling case that the management of risk shapes whether we flourish (or perish) both as individuals, and as a species. -- Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School and author of The Mind is Flat
Praise for Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalised (with James Ladyman) -- :
A book can be important, although its main claims seem to the reader to be as controversial at the end of the book as they were at the beginning ... So it is with Every Thing Must Go ... An enticing work -- Jeremy Butterfield * TLS *
Ross's broadside against traditional analytic metaphysics embodies the most admirable characteristics of a good slap across the face: it is forceful, frank, and delivered in response to sufficient provocation -- P. Kyle Stanford, author of Exceeding Our Grasp

Author Bio

Don Ross is professor and head of the School of Society, Politics and Ethics at University College Cork, Ireland; professor at the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town; and program director for Methodology at the Center for Economic Analysis of Risk, J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. He studies the design and interpretation of risky choice experiments with people and other animals.


Glenn Harrison is a distinguished university professor; the C. V. Starr Chair of Risk Management & Insurance; and director of the Center for the Economic Analysis of Risk, Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science, J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. He is also an adjunct professor at the School of Economics, University of Cape Town. He researches the economics of risk.