| View Larger Image | The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature | Paperbackby Geoffrey Miller (Author)
| List Price: | $16.95 | | Price: | $12.20 | | You Save: | $4.75 (28%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Anchor | | Page Count: | 528 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 17, 2001 | | Sales Rank: | 26,735th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780385495172
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
At once a pioneering study of evolution and an accessible and lively reading experience, The Mating Mind marks the arrival of a prescient and provocative new science writer. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincing–and radical–explanation for how and why the human mind evolved. Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking, The Mating Mind is a landmark in our understanding of our own species. |
Amazon.com Review
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 The Mating Mind, 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. 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' The Selfish Gene, 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). 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, The Mating Mind 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. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 42 reviews)
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A thought provoking read by Paul Gehrman (San Francisco, CA)  5 Stars
July 08, 2009
One of the better popular science books that I've read. The author provides a solid discussion of the most important ideas involving sexual selection and then extrapolates/extends the analysis. Occasionally, the author's speculations seem extravagant and I wasn't convinced by all of his arguments; however, this book easily garners five stars because it provides a good background on this subject and it is a very stimulating read. The book introduced me to many new ideas, it refined some of my thinking about existing ideas, and it raised new, interesting questions. In short, I think this book is an important contribution to this field and will surely tickle your intellect. Paul Gehrman, Author, Kaleidoscope
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A new paradigm for evolutionary psychology by Nigel Seel (Andover, UK)  4 Stars
June 03, 2009
In Geoff Miller's terminology, there are two Darwinian processes. Natural selection determines whether you live or die; sexual selection determines whether you can impress a mate sufficiently to produce offspring. Both tests need passing to leave descendants.
A female will have most descendants if she mates with a male with a good genetic set of cards (and conversely of course). In humans, it's normally the case that males present themselves to a female and then she gets to decide.
The decision process works better if there are fitness indicators: traits of appearance and/or behaviour which are reliably correlated with an underlying good-quality set of genes. As there are a number of different ways to excel in human societies, fitness indicators could include athletic prowess, firm leadership, intellectual sparkle, superior moral character and so on.
Miller believes that many aspects of the human mind, including intelligence, language and pleasant personality are best understood as proxies for underlying genetic fitness (and thereby sexually-selected), rather than survivalist adaptations.
Sexual selection, once it's understood in its full beauty, is a new paradigm for thinking about human behaviour in all fields of life. Many sections of the book explore the implications for literature, visual arts, politics and even the practice of science itself. I think it is fair to say that the practitioners of all these arts - mostly men - do not see themselves as primarily advertising their biological fitness to women. However once you open your eye in the status-hoarding, inter-personal viciousness and aphrodisiac consequences of success in any of these fields, the reality is pretty obvious.
My reservations are as follows.
1. Reading this large book is like eating high-quality muesli. There are a few drab and repetitive parts but on a regular basis one come across delicious nuggets of genuine insight and depth. The problem is the lack of an overarching structure, so at the end one finds oneself asking - what exactly does this all amount to?
2. As we're talking about humans here, we have to note that many psychological traits differ quite markedly between different human races, based on their adaptations to significantly different ecologies over the last 40,000 years. Talking about women being able to raise children without the active involvement of men thereby freeing the men up for elective sexual displays of hunting prowess, for example, works for equatorial latitudes where women may gather fruits and berries all the year round. But hunting is not so elective in highly-seasonal environments where little can be gathered in the snowy winter. I know Miller doesn't want to go there, but the result is sloppy reasoning.
3. Many sciences are somewhat reflexive: physicists and chemists are constructed from the same quantum and chemical processes that they describe; economists propose macroeconomic policies whose success depends upon people behaving as modelled, not trying in an informed way to game the policies. However, in evolutionary psychology one can directly predict just why people will be so hostile to the underlying results which the science unfortunately keeps unearthing. Evolutionary psychology, done honestly, just keeps turning up non-PC results.
Miller discusses this quite openly on pages 420 ff. "Creative Ideologies vs. Reliable Knowledge". There seems little biological payoff for generating theories which seem to violate most people's value systems (to give a crass example, many people still feel uncomfortable with the statement that not everyone is of the same intelligence). I think this is a real problem for evolutionary psychology as history tells us that, in practice, scientists are under enormous, career-terminating pressure not to violate conventional mores in their research, even when those mores state that the psychological earth is in fact flat.
Miller has continued his research on sexual selection (there's a recent book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior and another in the works for 2011). The ideas feel right and one can only hope we don't have to wait another century for evolutionary psychologists to turn these compelling intuitions and speculations into testable mathematical theories.
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The Business by PeeGeeBeeDee 4 Stars
May 11, 2009
This book is The Business. Go to your local library and check it out. And if your local library does not have this book in stock, demand that they acquire it immediately.
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Must Read by Psych Buff (Wash, DC) 5 Stars
February 12, 2009
Great Read! Geoffrey Miller does a fantastic job in this book. He states his theories in a matter of fact manner and articulates his ideas in short, 1-4 page segments throughout each chapter. While discrediting other theories, Miller does a good job of maintainig humility and he actively encourages scientists, as well as the reader to expand upon and critique his findings.
Miller's discussion of economics and game theory adds an insightful and intriguing style to this book. I had, and presume most would have many "Aha" moments while reading this book.
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Seminal Work! by Paul Theodorescu (Sherbrooke, QC, Canada) 5 Stars
July 24, 2008
This book is amazing! I'm a huge fan of evolutionary biology/evolutionary psychology... and this book is perhaps the best account of sexual selection I've seen out there.
The importance of sexual selection as a driving force in evolutionar history is very clearly explained and thoroughly backed up.
This book is phenomenal in explaining a ton of quirky human behaviors -- why women love big diamond rings, how men tip at restaurants, and so much more!
Some of the book's content is controversial (as our most findings in evolutionary psychology). There are some interesting debates regarding Geoffrey Miller's work on www.edge.org
Paul
paultheo2004@yahoo.ca
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
by Geoffrey Miller (Author)
A leading evolutionary psychologist probes the hidden instincts behind our working, shopping, and spending
Evolutionary psychology-the compelling science of human nature-has clarified the prehistoric origins of human behavior and influenced many fields ranging from economics to personal relationships. In Spent Geoffrey Miller applies this revolutionary science's principles to a new domain: the sensual wonderland of marketing and status seeking that we call American consumer culture....
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| The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature
by Matt Ridley (Author)
Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture -- including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an...
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| Sperm Wars: Infidelity, Sexual Conflict, and Other Bedroom Battles
by Robin Baker (Author)
Published to acclaim and controversy a decade ago, Sperm Wars is a revolutionary thesis about sex that turned centuries-old biological assumptions on their head. Evolution has programmed men to conquer and monopolize women while women, without ever knowing they are doing it, seek the best genetic input on offer from potential sexual partners. In this book, best-selling author Robin Baker reveals these new facts of life: ten percent of children are not fathered by their "fathers;"...
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| The Evolution Of Desire - Revised Edition 4
by David M. Buss (Author)
David Buss updates his classic study of the origin of human mating behavior with fascinating new research. If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question, says noted psychologist David Buss, we must look into our evolutionary past. Based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than ten thousand people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first...
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| Mating Intelligence: Sex, Relationships, and the Mind's Reproductive System
by Glenn Geher (Editor), Geoffrey Miller (Editor)
Human intelligence is sexually attractive, and strongly predicts the success of sexual relationships, but the behavioral sciences have usually ignored the interface between intelligence and mating. This is the first serious scholarly effort to explore that interface, by examining both universals and individual differences in human mating intelligence. Contributors include some of the most prominent evolutionary psychologists and promising new researchers in human intelligence, social...
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