Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind

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Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Previously head of the Psychology Department at Bath Spa University, he received an undergraduate degree in psychology and biology (BA Joint Hons) from Keele University and his doctorate (DPhil) in animal behaviour from the University of Sussex. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time. Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors.

I am the end result of this pairwise coevolution of our ancestors, both human and wolf: I needed this love to survive. Pinker shows that an acknowledgement of human nature that is grounded in science and common sense, far from being dangerous, can complement insights about the human condition made by millennia of artists and philosophers. Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? Narrated by four different demigods, The Mark of Athena is an unforgettable journey across land and sea to Rome, where important discoveries, surprising sacrifices, and unspeakable horrors await. Out of this complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the human capacity for understanding others.Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that what is obvious—that human beings, both male and female, are lustful—is true, and has always been so….

The book also contains a 4-page glossary; 19 pages of notes; and, a 28-page bibliography in addition to an index. So in a perverse way, you’ll probably end up evolving to be more moral, because being more moral makes you poorer, and when you’re poorer, you have more kids. I used to go to different lectures, I used to go to maths lectures and anthropology lectures, and biology lectures, and so on. The author explores deeply the evolutionary and psychological mechanisms that lead to our attitudes in the 21st century.Key studies and theories are explored in an accessible way, with the work of key evolutionary and behavioural scientists from Darwin to Dawkins examined and explained. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts.