Can anyone recommend a good book on evolutionary psychology?

[DMACM]

I just finished reading The Moral Animal by Robert Wright and I really enjoyed it. That book is on evolutionary psychology but focused mainly on how the moral sense evolved in humans and its genetic basis. Can anyone recommend any interesting books on evolutionary psychology?

[Nielsio]

If you're interested in morality, check out:
http://www.freedomainradio.com/index_files/listen_in.htm

Richard Dawkins deals with evolutionary morality somewhat in his latest 2-part tv documentary 'Root of all evil'.

[pokerstudAA]

I took an Evolutionary Psych class in college from David Buss. He was well respected and had some groundbreaking ideas on the subject. Some of his books listed on AMazon are textbooks but some of the others are more mainstream bestseller type reading.....

This was the class text:
Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind by David M. Buss


I remember this one as being particularly good: The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating
by David M. Buss (Paperback - July 2003)


DAVID BUSS (http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/002-1638629-9545600?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dblended&keywor ds=david+buss)

[chrisnice]

Sociobiology by EO Wilson....the one that started it all.

[pilliwinks]

"Alas, poor Darwin : arguments against evolutionary psychology"

edited by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose

Essential prior reading before entering this murky populist world.

[siegfriedandroy]

learn how to think 'outside the box'. hopefully u understand more about poker than u do about 'evol psych'...most of what u will learn in college is bu*lshit...maybe im jaded but at least im not jaded b/c of what ive read here on these forums...most are so gone it is inexplicable...i love usc law g'night

[theBruiser500]

get Riddley, all his books are good.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
"Alas, poor Darwin : arguments against evolutionary psychology"

edited by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose

Essential prior reading before entering this murky populist world.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's essential only from a secondary level. If you want to know what Evolutionary Psychology isn't about. This book sets up an strawman and attacks it with wet noodles. It'll remind you of how ID'ers combat evolution. In the ID case it's religion cloaked as science, in the Rose case it's the political left cloaked as science.

There isn't anything worthwhile in it that puts up a scientific case against the research found in journals such as "Evolution and Human Behavior." ( Do they even mention it in the book?).

It's not good enough to claim to have 'arguments against EP', they actually have to produce some. Against actual EP, not against the wispy nonsense they claim is EP.

[pilliwinks]

Interesting. I hadn't seen a political motive behind the book - I'll go back and look.

I disagree that they use only wet noodles, though I agree several straw men get molested. I think the chapter on memes is particularly worthwhile - so many people use that analogy so badly that even Dawkins says it can be taken too far.

In terms of EP itself, I have read plenty of wispy nonsense of the sort that they refute. That does not mean there is no good work being done, and I am not trying to suggest that EP is imaginary or false. Just that a lot of nonsense gets bandied about, and unless you are critical, it is easy to get taken in.

Would anybody here like to explain Consilience to me?

[luckyme]

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Just that a lot of nonsense gets bandied about, and unless you are critical, it is easy to get taken in.

[/ QUOTE ]

An attack on the nonsense isn't an attack on EP which is what the authors claim they've done. It's like disproving cosmological claims by attacking astrology. If they'd have titled their book, "an attack on the nonsense bandied about claiming to be EP" they'd have been honest with the public but because they took the strawman approach, they've done a large disservice.

[pilliwinks]

I'm not so sure. There are a set of people with whom the term EP is associated. They include Pinker, Wilson, Buss, and Wright. All of those guys have written things that make me wince and think "is this the best that modern academia has to offer?". They are the main targets of criticism in the book, and in general I think legitimately so.

To say that criticism of them is not criticism of EP is like saying criticism of Dawkins is not criticism of ultra-reductionism. To be sure he is not the only proponent, but he is its public face.

The main reason I recommend the book is because it points out that not only do EP explanations need to be plausible, they should also be more plausible than the alternatives.

The classic is the claim that women mate with rich men because that is adaptive. This is highly plausible - nobody could deny that pregnancy is an investment, and you don't want to waste your precious opportunities with losers who can't support you and the baby. The problem is that the argument goes:women do it now because it was adaptive in the Pleistocene, and now they are hard-wired. The obvious alternative is: women do it now because they like being rich. Personally I find the latter considerably more parsimonious an explanation, having as it does absurd amounts of current data to support it, while 'data' from the Pleistocene is mainly in the form of 'likely stories'.

[madnak]

The "they like being rich" explanation spectacularly fails to explain the broad range of mating behaviors. It fails even more miserably when applied to attraction in general rather than simply "mating."

[CallMeIshmael]

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It fails even more miserably when applied to attraction in general rather than simply "mating."

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a huge difference between long and short term mating.


Relative to one another, things like resources are more important in long term mating, while things like good looks are more important in short term mating.


EDIT: the predictions for the correlation between men having money and being more desirable, should be applied to more long term interest, and less on initial attraction

[AceofSpades]

Sex Signals, The Biology of Love by T. Perper is pretty damn good.

[Rduke55]

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It fails even more miserably when applied to attraction in general rather than simply "mating."

[/ QUOTE ]

There is a huge difference between long and short term mating.


Relative to one another, things like resources are more important in long term mating, while things like good looks are more important in short term mating.


EDIT: the predictions for the correlation between men having money and being more desirable, should be applied to more long term interest, and less on initial attraction

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm confused by this long-term/ short-term thing. Much of what people find attractive is based on the long-term.
ex. "Standard" female beauty consists of traits that can indirectly indicate fertility.

EDIT: I may be confused by your terminology. Are you talking about differences in female strategy where females may find either 1) certain physical traits attractive (your "short-term"?) in males b/c of runaway sexual selection (then their sons will have them and find a mate more easily) or 2) find resources attractive, or potentially other physical traits, for parental care? (your "long-term"). Both of which I consider strategies for the long-haul.

Also, an interesting study recently came out where women were attracted to different qualities in men depending on what point in the estrus cycle the woman was in. One point they liked rugged, square-jawed men. At another point they liked sensitive-bookish types.

[luckyme]

I'll reply to your mating example separately.

I'd be interested in your take on the Pinker/Rose debate available on "Edge" (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker_rose/pinker_rose_p1.html)

Not only the debate but the Q&A portion.
I thought Pinker exposed Rose's position for what it is, but I find Rose's tactics ( in his book) so reprehensible ( from a scientific discussion viewpoint) that I'm likely very biased.

From Pinkers intro comment -."..Actually, I DON'T believe that what people do is controlled by their genes. And i don't disagree with Professor Rose's statements that human beings are able to control our own lives, that organisms play an active role in their own destiny, and that we have the ability to construct our own futures. The question is not whether those statements are false. The question is whether those statements are BANAL."

And from his closing comments - “Many points that Professor Rose has made puzzle me, because I don't understand what they have to do with any of the theses of evolutionary psychology or How the Mind Works. The claims that "we're not infinitely flexible," that there are no "empty organisms," that organisms are "open systems organized in four dimensions," "self-organizing," "are not just naked replicators," "actively select their options," "interact with their environment," "should be understood at multiple levels," "are dynamic," are "not passive victims," "are not indefinitely flexible," and so on-all these are points that I completely agree with, and I don't understand what the point of Professor Rose's argument is.”

Oh, he has a point/purpose, it's just that it's not a scientific one .

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm confused by this long-term/ short-term thing. Much of what people find attractive is based on the long-term.
ex. "Standard" female beauty consists of traits that can indirectly indicate fertility.

EDIT: I may be confused by your terminology. Are you talking about differences in female strategy where females may find either 1) certain physical traits attractive (your "short-term"?) in males b/c of runaway sexual selection (then their sons will have them and find a mate more easily) or 2) find resources attractive, or potentially other physical traits, for parental care? (your "long-term"). Both of which I consider strategies for the long-haul.

Also, an interesting study recently came out where women were attracted to different qualities in men depending on what point in the estrus cycle the woman was in. One point they liked rugged, square-jawed men. At another point they liked sensitive-bookish types.

[/ QUOTE ]



What I mean is that when women are making decisions about mating, they get cues from the guy. Specifically, is the guy more interested in a short term fling, or interested in engaging in a long term monogamous relationship.

What women use to determine whether they are interested depends on what the man is signalling.


IF the man is likely to be interested in a short term fling, she should care less about his resources and more about his looks. (good looks of course being a signal of underlying genetic strength)

IF the man is more interested in a long term relationship, the woman should be more interested in his ability to provide resources for her young.


Now, im not saying looks dont matter in long term mating or that resources dont help guys in short term mating, just that the relative preferences for these two things change depending on what she thinks the guy is offering.



Ive also heard about the cycle studies. Similar to the one you mentioned: in one of them, I recall people took the sweaty shirts from guys, and had women smell them. The women preferred symmetrical men (symmetry is very likely correlated with good genes/good looks), BUT only when they were fertile, otherwise there was no preferance.

This agrees with what you mentioned. Since, its good for women to go after the good genes when they are fertile, BUT since men with good genes offer (on average) less in terms of long term care, they should seek the bookish types when they are not fertile (since they offer, on average, more care)

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
What I mean is that when women are making decisions about mating, they get cues from the guy. Specifically, is the guy more interested in a short term fling, or interested in engaging in a long term monogamous relationship.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, we were talking on 2 different levels.

[ QUOTE ]
IF the man is likely to be interested in a short term fling, she should care less about his resources and more about his looks. (good looks of course being a signal of underlying genetic strength)

IF the man is more interested in a long term relationship, the woman should be more interested in his ability to provide resources for her young.

[/ QUOTE ]

But you don't think what a woman finds attractive has been shaped a great deal?
For example, women may want to bang the rich guy with the nice ride, etc. while having no intention of a long-term relationship. She finds the ability to provide resources attractive.

[madnak]

Women are attracted to power and success even in terms of "short-term" attraction.

Regardless, while I agree it's not perfect I think evolutionary psychology offers the only viable theories that account for the observed data.

[luckyme]

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The obvious alternative is: women do it now because they like being rich.

[/ QUOTE ]
I see other posters have touched on some of the flaws in this, but I'll list a few-
EP is concerned with the attraction, which is typically to indicators rather than directly to the property ( think peacocks tail).

Attraction isn't rational, we do rationalize it though. Anne Nichol's are fairly rare, and even her case it says nothing about attraction. Yes, it's possible that women are cold-hearted gold-diggers, but then we aren't talking about "why are women attracted to men of wealth?" but "are women attracted to wealth?"

The attraction to men exhibiting ( not necessarily having) power/influence would be more directly linked to wealth/provider in simpler times than it is today and less likely to lead to the disasterous relationships that it can these days.

I'll stop, and sum up that "they like being rich" simply gives the wrong answer to the wrong question.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
For example, women may want to bang the rich guy with the nice ride, etc. while having no intention of a long-term relationship. She finds the ability to provide resources attractive.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Women are attracted to power and success even in terms of "short-term" attraction.

[/ QUOTE ]


I agree with both of these.


Like I said, resources/power do play a role in short term mating, it is just less important relative to the role in long term mating.

[pilliwinks]

Looks like there are plenty of folk interested in why women mate /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I readily confess to being no anthropologist or sociologist, so I will gladly bow to whatever is the received wisdom on who it is that women prefer. My point is that our theories should be prioritised if they contain current data about current habits, and treated with some suspicion if they are based on hypotheses about what did or did not occur in the Pleistocene.

It would be unfortunate if our best theories for human behaviour were of the form: we see now that A does X to B, we speculate that in the Pleistocene it was adaptive for As to do X to B, we now have an explanation for why A does X to B.

The reason this is unsatisfactory is that I find I can make an adaptive Pleistocene 'explanations' for just about any behaviour, including contradictory ones.

Of course if you actually have convincing data about sexual habits in the Pleistocene, I'll be the first to applaud.

Please note that I have no problem with people being driven by unconscious urges or goals. I just have problems with attempts to make sociological hypotheses sound genetic by attributing an imagined selective history to them.

[CallMeIshmael]

Pill,

Somewhat of a related question.


The love of sweets/fats that all of us have is clearly maladaptive in todays world. It would be better for us to crave more healthy foods.

Do you agree that this conundrum is the product of evolution tens of thousands of years ago?

[pilliwinks]

Ishmael, yes. And no.

Everything that we are is inevitably the product of our history - that's how we got here.

That does not mean that it is inevitable that what happened during the history included selection for the feature in question.

In the case of preference for sweets/fats, you could argue that since this is a feature of every extant mammal I ever heard of, that we have it not a selected adaptive trait that emerged tens of thousands of years ago, but rather that it is a legacy of our mammalian precursor past (millions of years ago). Whether this stands up to scrutiny you would have to ask an archaeologist.

It's no conundrum that we have non-adaptive traits. Humans should carry plenty of these, since our habitat has changed so drastically.