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Tomasello claims that over the evolutionary history of our genus (Homo) and our species (H. sapiens), natural selection has favoured a special form of social cognition - mind-reading or intention perception. This he claims is unprecedented in the animal kingdom; and it is the key driver of our success as a species. No other animal species - including highly social animals and highly intelligent animals - has the capacity to understand conspecifics as beings like themselves. Tomasello also claims that as this cognitive capacity was starting to evolve more than one million years ago somewhere in Africa, new forms of high fidelity cultural learning were also starting to evolve, and these enabled new forms of cumulative cultural evolution - that is, pooling and reliable transmission from one generation to the next of innovations, tools, techniques, practices. None of our cousins in the great ape family evolved these forms of social cognition to this degree, and none evolved any significant forms of culture. Describe, explain and evaluate Tomasello's claims that it is the evolution of mind-reading and intention perception that makes human ways of thinking and behaving unique in the animal kingdom. Is this plausible? Are there any problems with it?
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