false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167881458m/27486.jpg 27486 4 Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial, it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In <I>The Mating Mind</I>, he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music, and literature.<p> Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller compares it to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' <I>The Selfish Gene</I>, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project, which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence that Miller brings to bear on it. Steeped in popular culture, the book mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness indicators, and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins. Indeed, Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).<p> That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove comforting, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analyzing humor. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, <I>The Mating Mind</I> is formidable, its agent-provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest. <I>--David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk</I> 363560 book 2000 The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature total:100|5:29|4:40|3:28|2:2|1:1| 100 394 225 20 3 3 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Feb 16 04:19:27 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 12 08:37:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 true false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Mar 06 02:17:53 -0800 2007 Wed Jul 18 20:19:54 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jul 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 02 07:32:32 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 20:54:14 -0700 2009
What I was most impressed with was how compelling this book was, even when laying a foundation th...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu May 21 18:37:15 -0700 2009 Thu May 21 18:42:49 -0700 2009
Then you might be interested in Miller's take on how the human brain evolved from its chimpanzee-like precursor.

Just as in the peacock's tail, almost every human...more...]]> 3 0 true false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Oct 12 15:55:35 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 21 19:27:56 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Feb 27 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 09:43:14 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 09:45:44 -0800 2009 ]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jul 08 11:16:18 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 07:40:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 0 false false Fri Mar 20 08:00:38 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 20 08:00:38 -0700 2009 from the cover: GM is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution ar University College, London. PhD from Stanford Univ in cognitive psychology.

God save us from evolutionary psychology masquarading as anything to do with s...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Feb 25 11:56:09 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 25 11:56:29 -0800 2009 Origins.]]> 0 0 false false Fri Dec 05 17:36:06 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 05 17:37:43 -0800 2008 The Ancestor's Tale.]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 12:20:59 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 05 12:21:51 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Thu Oct 11 09:02:42 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 11 09:07:38 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 00:34:38 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 27 03:01:06 -0700 2008 Impressive thinking from Miller to fill the missing gap of evolutionary psychology. If everything we do and think must have evolutionary purpose, what's the point of creativity, kindness, morality, humour - all of which have no obvious survival benefit?

Enter The Mating Mind. Convin...more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Jan 23 14:55:22 -0800 2009 Sun May 03 17:11:32 -0700 2009
Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to read this. But it just kept on getting frustrating. Miller kept on explaining and seemingly trying to prove a theory just to say "b...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Nov 19 16:39:55 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 16:50:56 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Tue Feb 17 08:18:35 -0800 2009 Mon Jul 20 15:36:06 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 09 08:50:53 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 07:11:56 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Sun Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Wed May 16 15:51:32 -0700 2007 Wed May 16 15:52:21 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Sat Sep 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 12:42:47 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 15:50:05 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Mar 23 11:50:44 -0700 2007 Fri Mar 23 11:50:50 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=27486