The Knowledge Gene, my new book, offers scientific evidence for what so many people already know instinctively: that art, music, performance, story and our connection to our surroundings are fundamental to be human. But it goes even further to show that these ancient, innate, universal and uniquely human skills have been fundamental to human culture for at least 70,000 years and are critical in storing information in a way no other species can manage.
Evolution had a very good reason for keeping a gene that enhanced these skills, despite the tragic disorder it introduces. And it also had very good reasons for ensuring all human populations involve neurodiverse thinkers – those with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, aphantasia among many diversities.
Endorsements for The Knowledge Gene
‘At last, here is the Big Picture about what it really means to be human!
The present is catching up with our past. The discovery of how the supergene works is the key to how First Peoples can remember knowledge across 2000 generations without the written word. Humans are wired to learn and remember through story telling conveyed by immersion in art, music and performance. This embodied knowledge system is integrated, in contrast to the Western system of text-based compartmentalised disciplines that bypasses the supergene.
This is a call to action on how to learn the way we are supposed to.’
Adj. Professor Margo Ngawa Neale, Centre for Indigenous Knowledges, National Museum of Australia
‘A consensus is growing in the world, amongst a scattered family of scholars and knowledge keepers from many cultures: that consciousness, place, story, craft and memory are bound together to form an extended self with a unique neurology embodied far beyond the limits of our skulls. Lynne Kelly is a leading light in a global community of intellectuals, whose regalia may be academic robes or grass skirts, who think with their hands, feet, homes and hearts, making marked paths of memory for others to follow. Kelly rounds out an expansive trilogy that began with The Memory Code, offering a map anyone can follow to claim an ancestral legacy of genius held in trust within the body of every human being.’
Tyson Yunkaporta, Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab, Deakin University, author of Sand Talk
‘A rollicking ride through the strange and wonderful world of how humans attained the ability to learn, store and transmit vast amounts of information, invigorating communities with memory, knowledge, meaning and culture through the generations.’
Professor Bruno David, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre
‘Dr Lynne Kelly is a veteran of authoritative books on memory. Now she adds music and art and their connection to memory and genetics. Along the way she surveys the archaeological evidence. All of this is written in an easy-reading style to sweep us along in the tide of an engrossing story. Written in close connection with the geneticists and others who ensure that the book is authoritative this is a book full of fascinating details of so many aspects of genetics, evolution, music, art and knowledge all driven by Kelly’s deep understanding of memory and oral tradition.’
Iain Davidson, Emeritus Professor, Archaeology, University of New England
‘With its uncompromising title, Lynne Kelly offers us a thought-provoking book on human evolution, emphasising the critical role of creativity and art throughout our history, and their continued importance in promoting individual and societal well-being in the twenty-first century.’
Professor Alan Harvey, author of Music, Evolution, and the Harmony of Souls
‘Whether or not you subscribe to a “knowledge gene”, let’s all rejoice in the unique human genome that gives us language and knowledge, and allows us to store, retrieve and transmit knowledge over time and space. I really enjoyed reading a book so upbeat about the genes that make us human.’
Professor Jennifer A. Marshall Graves FAA, AC, School of Life Sciences, La Trobe University
‘Lynne Kelly takes us on a mnemonic tour de force, exploring groundbreaking neuroscience research that reveals how our ability to develop knowledge and commit it to memory through story, music, and art is encoded in our very DNA. The Knowledge Gene changes everything.’
Associate Professor Duane Hamacher, author of The First Astronomers
‘Lynne Kelly walks us from the ancient into the modern world and right into our classrooms, providing the research basis and lived experience of how music and the arts enrich—and inevitably create—our human condition.’
Dr Anita Collins, author of The Music Advantage
‘The Knowledge Gene is an incredibly important piece of work which brings to light information that will forever change the way we think about our history, how we learn, and what it means to be human.’
Nelson Dellis, 5-time USA Memory Champion
Her findings, laid out within The Knowledge Gene, present a strong case for the importance of a fundamental emphasis on the arts — no matter who we are, or where we’ve come from.
Denizen Magazine, New Zealand
