Books
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Kreativ med Darwin (in Swedish)
Anyone can come up with a fun idea. But telling a truly good idea from a bad one is not as easy – and turning it into reality and making it fly is even harder. Who succeeds is no coincidence, however. Creativity is a skill that can be learned.
In Kreativ med Darwin (Creative with Darwin), Patrik Lindenfors shows how you can become a true innovator with the help of the world’s most tried-and-tested method: the evolutionary process. Nature’s own research laboratory, which has produced the fantastic diversity of life and astonishing solutions to difficult problems.
With examples from culture, technology and business, he shows how knowledge of variation, inheritance and selection can be used to structure creative work. We also learn how a kingfisher became a high-speed train, what nasal balloons can teach us about the clothing market and what a microbrewery has in common with a certain Peruvian poison dart frog. -
Äckel (in Swedish)
Disgust is what makes us avoid rotten food and people who blow their nose in the tablecloth. But feelings of revulsion and distaste also tell us about right and wrong – and about who is us and who is them. Disgust is therefore an emotion that has been exploited with frightening success in connection with humanity’s most terrible crimes.
In Äckel (Disgust), Lindenfors explores the borderland between our emotional intuition and our morality, and how this connection influences the political debate of our time. To understand ourselves, we need to examine how our automatic reactions work and how they can be exploited. Disgust has had a decisive influence on us as human beings, and has shaped society, the market, religion and history.
Därför blir vi äcklade – och det här äcklar oss. Göran Everdahl in ICA-kuriren 29 January 2024.
“Feeling disgust is pure survival instinct, points out evolutionary researcher Patrik Lindenfors in his book ‘Äckel: Smitta, synd, samhälle’.”
Spanarna. Göran Everdahl in P1 2 June 2023.
“Disgust is the new black.”
Kvinnors äckelkapital är ett maktmedel. Lotta Ilona Häyrynen in Arbetet 16 May 2023.
“In evolutionary researcher Patrik Lindenfors’ new book Äckel: Smitta, synd, samhälle (Ordfront), feelings of disgust and the research on them are presented as a social phenomenon.”
Så formar äckelkänslor världen. Fredrik Sjöberg in Svenska Dagbladet 12 May 2023.
“With more or less astonishing examples, interpreted by researchers from Darwin onwards, the story of our shifting disgust thresholds is told.”
Luras inte av äcklets retorik mot transpersoner. Kristin McMillen in ETC 5 May 2023.
“[…] Kristin McMillen, who turns to the new book ‘Äckel’ by evolutionary researcher Patrik Lindenfors to understand the power of disgust – and to find hope.”
Maria Fridstjerna in BTJ-häftet no. 8 2023.
“The book’s popular science style makes it accessible and its pedagogical structure makes it easy to read. The author shows exceptionally well how important it is to understand the feeling of disgust in order to grasp how people and society work. (…) The text is intellectually stimulating and arouses curiosity about humans and their surroundings from aspects such as politics, philosophy and biology. (…) The book is suitable both for university teaching and for the interested general public. It is a pleasure to read! Overall rating: 5 out of 5.”
Äckel – vad ska vi med det till? Kropp & Själ, Swedish Radio, 15 August 2023.
Avsnitt 328: Patrik Lindenfors – Äckel. Podcast Lära från lärda 12 June 2023.
Om äcklets moraliska roll i samhället Filosofiska rummet, Swedish Radio, 26 May 2023.
Äckel – varför känner vi det? Talkshow i P1, Swedish Radio, 22 May 2023.
Avsnitt 155: Patrik Lindenfors – Äckel som argument blir mindre gångbart ju mer välståndet ökar. Podcast Ordfronten 12 April 2023. -
Kristendom (in Swedish)
With more than two billion adherents, Christianity is the world’s largest religion, and its holy scripture, the Bible, the world’s most influential book. This means that even those who do not share the Christian worldview or life stance must relate to this religion, which has changed the world for better and for worse.
The story of Christianity begins with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Bible describes how Jesus came to earth, shared our burdens, took our sins upon himself and died for our sake. It then tells how he defeated death and thereby gave us the possibility of eternal life.
But what was Jesus’ message? How do we know? Why is the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection more important than what he said? And why are there so many churches? These are some of the questions examined in this book.
In Kristendom (Christianity), Patrik Lindenfors presents Christianity and its central teachings. The book tries to make it understandable why some choose to profess the Christian faith, but also contains a source-critical examination of the historical material. -
Det kulturella djuret – Om människans evolution och tänkandets utveckling (in Swedish)
A few million years ago our ancestors made the first stone tools. Then remarkably little happened for two and a half million years. Only in the last few thousand years has technological development taken a real leap. We have built cities, written symphonies, built moon rockets, the internet and a new football stadium, while the high point of cultural development in the rest of the animal kingdom is still using two stones to crack nuts. What happened?
In Det kulturella djuret (The Cultural Animal) you learn about the latest research on the brain, on learning and on the information processing that is unique to humans, and with which we have changed both the world and ourselves. Along the way you also learn a great deal about the rest of the animal kingdom: Are crows really smarter than five-year-olds? Do single-celled paramecia have a memory? And what does an anthill have in common with a human brain? Above all, you learn about the biological and cultural evolution that has made us who we are today.
För mycket fackspråk för att riktigt nå ut. Eli Göndör in Respons no. 6 2019.
“[…] awakens curiosity and a desire to read on, to take part of the rich knowledge that the author evidently possesses.”
Boktips: Fackböcker som hyllas av läsare och kritiker. Ellinor Skagegård in Svenska Dagbladet 25 November 2019.
“Researcher and author Patrik Lindenfors tells the story of the biological and cultural revolution that has made us humans the cultural animals we are today.”
Spretigt om den kulturella evolutionen. Henrik Höjer in Forskning & Framsteg no. 10 2019.
“Much of it is exciting and thought-provoking – and for those interested in research there is without doubt a lot to learn here.”
Den unika människan. Daniel Helsing in Sydsvenskan 22 September 2019.
“Is there something uniquely human that separates us from all other animals? Daniel Helsing reads two new books about the cultural origins of humankind and ponders whether the image of our special position is in fact destructive.”
Våra djuriska jag. ICA-Kuriren 17 August 2019.
“Patrik Lindenfors – a researcher in biological and cultural evolution – has written an endlessly interesting book about how we humans develop into who we are.”
Vår hjärnas myrstack ger oss personligt ansvar. Merete Mazzarella in Svenska Dagbladet 13 August 2019.
“[…] often illuminating and thought-provoking, at times even enjoyable.”
Hjärnkraft, kultur och djur. Marie Eriksson in Nyhetsmagasinet Syre 13 August 2019.
“Patrik Lindenfors delivers at the highest level when it comes to the third task. He is a researcher in biological and cultural evolution at Stockholm University. And he writes – mostly – accessibly, even really entertainingly. Here is someone who has made an effort to make scientific findings as accessible as possible. […] Many who pan for gold have to search for a long time. But there are those who know enough to find the real nuggets and who like to share their joy with others. Patrik Lindenfors seems to belong to that group.”
Arv och miljö. Leonidas Aretakis in Dagens Nyheter 1 August 2019.
“Pedagogical and knowledgeable about why schoolyards and chromosomes matter more than upbringing.”
Therese Nordholm in BTJ-häftet no. 12 2019.
“It sounds heavy and it sounds difficult, but the author has managed to write it so that it has instead become a very good and exciting page-turner. The book is in parts entertainingly written, packed with knowledge across a broad range, and some of the examples given are quite astonishing … suits the university as well as the generally curious reader.” -
For Whose Benefit? The Biological and Cultural Evolution of Human Cooperation
Cooperation is one of life’s fundamental principles. We are all made of parts – genes, cells, organs, neurons, but also of ideas, or ‘memes’. Our societies too are made of parts – us humans. Is all this cooperation fundamentally the same process?
From the smallest component parts of our bodies and minds to our complicated societies, everywhere cooperation is the organizing principle. Often this cooperation has emerged because the constituting parts have benefited from the interactions, but not seldom the cooperating units appear to lose on the interaction. How then to explain cooperation? How can we understand our intricate societies where we regularly provide small and large favors for people we are unrelated to, know, or even never expect to meet again? Where does the idea come from that it is right to risk one’s life for country, religion or freedom? The answers seem to reside in the two processes that have shaped humanity: biological and cultural evolution.
The Selfish Meme Hypothesis: An Evolutionary Account of Culture and Cooperation. Louise Sundararajan in PsycCRITIQUES 16 October 2017.
“Lindenfors has written a thought-provoking story about human cooperation, in which the selfish gene hypothesis is extended to selfish meme in an engaging, lucid, and coherent account of cultural evolution. The writing is highly accessible, and the coverage of topics is suitable for courses in psychology at all levels—from undergraduate to postdoctoral. Those who subscribe to evolutionary psychology will find in this book an invaluable source of information; those who disagree with the evolutionary framework will find in Lindenfors a worthy opponent. What more can one expect of a book?” -
Sekulär humanism – with Christer Sturmark (in Swedish)
This book presents the life stance of secular humanism: what it is, where the ideas come from and what its most important elements are.
Secular humanism starts from the human being – that is where the name “humanism” comes from. It comes from the insight that we humans – for better or worse – are left to ourselves and each other. We must find out, by ourselves and together, how reality works. We must take responsibility, by ourselves and together, for how we behave and take care of each other. No one but ourselves is responsible for our own lives and our common fate.
Secular humanists believe that this world and this life is all we have. We should therefore try to live our lives as well as possible and make it easier for others to have the chance to do the same. All people have the right to be judged, on the basis of reason and compassion, on their own merits. -
Samarbete (in Swedish)
Cooperation is one of life’s fundamental principles. We are all built of cooperating parts – genes, cells, organs, neurons, but also ideas. Our societies too are built of parts – us humans. Is all this cooperation fundamentally the same process? From the smallest components of the human being to our complicated societies, everywhere we find cooperation as an organizing principle.
Most often cooperation has arisen because the parts involved have had something to gain from it, but not seldom they actually seem to lose from the interaction. What then explains cooperation? And how can we really understand our intricate human societies, where we regularly do favours for others we are not related to, do not know and will probably never meet again? How do ideas arise that it is right to risk one’s life for country, religion or freedom? The answers seem to lie in the two processes that created humankind: biological and cultural evolution. The book guides you through the enigma of cooperation, on a journey that starts inside the body and continues via our thoughts to the human superorganism. -
God Probably Doesn't Exist
Have you ever wondered if there is a god? Then this book is for you.
When people talk about “Christian children”, “Muslim children”, or “Hindu children”, they usually mean children of Christian, Muslim or Hindu parents.
But all people are born with a brain of their own. Don’t you want to decide for yourself what to believe?
There are many books about all kinds of religions. They contain stories and tales, sometimes beautiful, sometimes frightening, sometimes inspiring, sometimes depressing.
This book contains no such tales. Instead, it explains why many believe that gods don’t exist. Read and think. You are the only person who can decide if you believe.
The book has so far been translated into eight languages. (Anyone keen on translating it into Arabic or French? In that case, please send me an e-mail.)