We are witnessing an awful cognitive decline. Neurodegenerative diseases are plaguing our lives and modern humans are not able to process complex information or even to think anymore. Why? Or rather, what kind of dramatic evolutionary phenomenon made this happen?
It is from this central and fundamental question that Romanian author and independent researcher Dan Mrejeru crafted a brilliant and well-detailed collection of academic papers focused on the evolution and regression of the human brain.
The collection, enriched with opinions and points of view of the same author and eminent scientists, gave rise to the book titled The Making, the Rise, and the Future of the Speakingman. This work is the fourth edition of an awe-inspiring analysis split into three important parts, which start from the creation (the making), the development (the rise) and the consequences (the future) of the so-called speaking man. The latter is the latest stage of human evolution that took place just 23,000 years ago, when the dominant species on our planet was Homo Sapiens.
Forced to survive and face a long series of complex events and complexities, early humans developed a strong neural network that made them able to think, process information and speak, shaping a new modern human species the author depicts as Homo Loquens or Speakingman.
This new species is the one we are still having today and that, unfortunately, does not have the skills of our ancestors. Despite all this loquacity, also proved by comments on digital chats and social media, the modern speaking man has lost his innate capacity to understand and, above all, to listen to the needs of his own kind. Because, as the book says, “we are submerged by an ocean of information, but instead of diving, we drown.”
In the book, the author gradually drives readers to discover interesting and scientifically backed perspectives on the development of neurons in the brain and their current decline. But it is essential to note that his work is not a mere nonfiction book, but a neuroscience volume sourced with excerpts, abstracts and citations of established scholars.
Moreover, the daughter of the author is a talented neuroscientist. Dan Mrejeru, instead, is an engineer who saw his dream of becoming a geologist denied in his country of birth, Romania.
Emigrating to the United States, the author achieved his dreams and learned English to show his research to the world. The setting of his book is, in fact, universal, because the expressed concepts are universal. The English language is academic but also suitable for general readers.
The book is well written, with a flow of words and methodical concepts that invite us to keep reading.
Indeed, blending geological events, prehistoric data, and neuroscience discoveries, Dan Mrejeru offers us an optimal description of what happened to the human brain over a long frame of time: from the flourishing of new neurons, which made us who we were until 200 years ago, to the current neural changes we are experiencing today. The tone of voice is technical and heartfelt at the same time, and you can always perceive the message the author intended to convey.
The reading is facilitated, among other things, by references and quotes that are properly integrated into the content.
Linear and non-linear thinking, geomagnetism, oxidative stress and their influence on our brain, the transition from collectivism to individualism, the impairment of creativity, the risk of a slow but inexorable emotional and human decay: these are the factually discussed topics of a book that aims “to save the world and ourselves from the miseries we have created.”
