Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

Great book

I wish more textbooks were like this. The only one that really comes to mind is Animal Social Behavior by Wittenberger. Like that one, this book impresses by the quality of the arguments. He never just comes up with 'this is the way it is, so learn it'. He often presents an hypothesis, then lists predictions that can be made from that hypothesis and suitable tests, and then evidence to support or disprove it. You learn something about the scientific method as well as the subject matter. I admit I dismissed evolutionary psychology for a long time, arguing that we are no longer subject to darwinian evolution, but are subject to rapid cultural evolution. However, this book shows exactly why I was wrong, and how much we can learn from the sort of interesting questions that an evolutionary perspective inspires. A nice antidote to the influence of behaviourism, which still seems to be present in sociology and feminist ideology. Just so long as we remember that not all behaviour is an adaptation.

Each day for twenty-something years I woke up to see reality as it was presented to me. I noticed many patterns in life that are hard not to notice -- such as the difference between men and women in how they approach sexual opportunities. Men will readily say yes, women firmly no. Why? Evolution is such an intriguing and elegant theory on its approach to our current behavior. Boss's contention is that the present behaviors we see today in our modern era -- fear of snakes, high male sexual drive -- arose from our ancestors. Those who did not have such characteristics did not become our ancestors. Thus, over time, certain characteristics were more likely to be successful in the mating process, and those are the same characteristics we see today. Boss's insight required a lot of keen intellectual insight into many different hypothesis. Some of these hypothesis seemed far-fetched at first. Who would think that there would be statistical differences in how maternal grandparents v. paternal grandparents relate to their grandchildren. There are, however. Maternal grandmothers have less risk in investing in a grandchild who is not biologically related since she is confident that her daughter is biologically hers, and she can be certain that her daughter's child is biologically related, too. The hypothesis that paternal grandfathers would be most distant -- since they have the most to lose -- turned out to be true. (Paternal grandfathers cannot be 100% certain that they fathered their son or daughter, and thus, they cannot be sure that that child's son or daughter is biologically related). This is perhaps one of the most important contributions in scientific literature since Watson and Clark's published report on their findings of DNA. Michael Gordon

At the time of publication this was a great overview of the field of evolutionary psychology. I used the book for leisure reading, but it would be good course material as well. Definitely a necessity in any well rounded library.

The excessive highlighting is EXCESSIVE and has deteriorated some of the text highlighted!! Returning!!

👍

Still reading it and find it very informative.