The single most important book that fed a mind starving for truth, as I stumbled out of seminary with a thousand more questions and issues than when I went in. Diamond has written a veritable blueprint for the human being... Who we are, and how we came to be this way - drawing on a host of parallels from the animal kingdom: speech, communication, sex, mate selection, etc.

It's not a refutation of anything religious. It's a fascinating book that sheds much light on that most peculiar (yet apparently not so very, after all) creature: the human being.

If there was an "owner's manual" for every person to read, this is it.

Overall, I was disappointed with the lack of continuity across chapters. I wished the author would've focused more on the connection between humans' and other animals' behavior rather than wandering so much. The most redeemable section, I thought, was the chapter on the evolution of language, which I found very interesting. Otherwise, I thought sometimes the author was way too theoretical without enough evidence for his stance.

كتاب قيم في الانثروبولوجيا يعالج مواضيع متنوعة من التشابه في التركيب الجيني مع الاساسيات و الاسس التي ادت الى تطور الجنس البشري الاصطفاء الجنسي و الاباضة المخفية عند البشر
تطور اللغات البشرية و اهمية اللغة في تطور جنسنا
آراء رائعة في الأخلاق و صفات البشر المتفردة
الابادات الجماعية و الكثير الكثير عن اهمية ايقاف نزيف كوكبنا الذي يقف على حافة الانهيار

The book feels a little dated but an interesting topic to be sure. Some random observations:

Middle stone age Africans can be considered big game hunters but avoided the dangerous ones like rhinos.

Around forty thousand years ago we see evidence of early man first using projectiles to hunt.

Of the Great apes and their physiology, man has the longest penis and women have the largest breasts. Scientists don't know why.

Diamond believes the great leap forward came to homo sapiens with the development of language.

Diamond does get a few things wrong in this book that is thirty years old.

Author states that Neanderthals and other species did not cross-breed. (The evidence today indicates that cross breeding was happening 100,000 years ago. Non-African humans today share between 6% and 9% of their genome with Neanderthals.)