This book is a must read and must analyse and tease out the contradictions, inconsistencies and general confusion with respect to what it means for something to be scoentific fact.

The author even brings much caution himself to the field and to how many evolutionary interpretations are post hoc explanations. And yet thoroughout the text the author makes mistakes of ascribing what is “self evident” evolutionary mechanism without explaining what kind of knowledge this is, without noting how it is not falsifiable.

It is a huge challenge but any logical thinker should be prepared to explain how they relate.

For me the biggest issue is one of types of knowledge. The idea that a particular trait might play a key role in the evolutionary mechanics of a species is not the same kind of absolute knowledge that it is optimal, that it is well adapted, that it is a special adaptation even that it is a solution to something...

In the real evolutionary context you cannot run perfect simulations and so you cannot falsify a particular trait. When you use genetic algorithms in computing there is a huge difference which is that you know the fitting function. For anything real this is so complex that it is nearly meaningless.

Still this is a book one must read to articulate your thinking around the intrinsic limitations of this field.


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Two stars if you read the last two chapters. it gets really moralising there, overly so. the first bit is good, a discussion of what evolution has predisposed humans to do, applied to modern life. interesting points, but still punctuated by the author's own morals and beliefs, often posed as fact or theory rather than belief. ( )

Half Darwin's biography, half uncomfortable evolutionary biology examination of human behaviour. ( )

Not quite what I expected but in a way so much more.

I am interested in the genetic underpinnings of our moral codes. I know that there are evolutionary reasons that we think killing is wrong, that we believe it's best to treat others as we'd like to be treated. This kind of code is in the genes. It doesn't come from a religious book, although many religions would like to take the credit.

In this book Wright explains "evolutionary psychology" in an interesting way. He offers theories on why it is in our best interest to behave certain ways. To be more specific, that would be why it is in the best interests of our bloodlines to behave in certain ways during the dawn of humankind. After all, humans have not changed a whole lot in thousands of years, so we need to look at what was necessary for survival of the species back in hunter-gatherer days.

And thus we learn about the differences between the way males and females approach sex, the law of reciprocal altruism and how it extends past the immediate family, the role of social status in our actions, why we lie and deceive even ourselves. What makes this investigation even more interesting is that each topic is then applied to a human example: Charles Darwin. Darwin, as many know, was well known for his modesty and empathy, and for having a warm, loving personality. He was also plagued with frequent illnesses and depression. His life is well-documented, which provides a good basis for an evaluation of the man in relation to his psychological behaviors.

Darwin figured out some evolutionary morality behaviors early on. Others were left for over 100 years to be picked up by other scientists.

While I loved this book I found one aspect of it a little disturbing. I may have read it wrong, of course. I understood the chapters on ethics to suggest that essentially when a person is born into a certain culture he learns that culture's ethics. I do believe that, to an extent, this is true. But while I believe self-serving criminals find it easier to rob and steal than do those who had a more compassionate upbringing, I also believe that these criminals do know that what they are doing is "wrong" - not just illegal, but wrong. And I believe that certain behaviors are considered "wrong" in all cultures. There will always be psychopaths but apart from them humankind does appear to share some basic moral codes. And we get them in our genes.

Nothing, of course, is all that simple. There is a lot of room for maneuver within "human nature". ( )

it's taking me a while to get through this, but it's absolutely fascinating ( )