Evolutionary theory is one of the most wide-ranging and inspiring of scientific ideas. It offers a battery of methods that can be used to help us understand human behavior. Nevertheless, the legitimacy of this exercise is at the center of a heated controversy that has raged for over a century. Many evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and psychologists have taken these evolutionary principles and tried using them to explain a wide range of human characteristics, such as homicide, religion and sex differences in behavior. Others, however, are sceptical of these interpretations. Moreover, researchers disagree as to the best ways to use evolution to explore humanity, and a number of schools have emerged.

'Sense and Nonsense' provides an introduction to the ideas, methods, and findings of five such schools, namely, sociobiology, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology, memetics, and gene-culture co-evolution. Carefully guiding the reader through the mire of confusing terminology, claim and counter-claim, and polemical statements, Laland and Brown provide a balanced, rigorous analysis that scrutinizes both the evolutionary arguments and the allegations of the critics. This is a book that will be make fascinating reading for popular science readers, undergraduate and postgraduate students (for example, in psychology, anthropology and zoology), and to experts on one approach who would like to know more about the other perspectives. Having completed this book the reader will feel better placed to assess the legitimacy of claims made about human behavior under the name of evolution, and to make judgements as to what is sense and what is nonsense.

Reviewing a broad swath of the literature related to evolutionary treatments of the causes of human behavior, psychology, and culture, Laland and Brown (both researchers at the Department of Zoology, U. of Cambridge, UK) attempt to evaluate the relative worth of recent research and provide an account of where evolutionary theory holds some promise in explaining human behavior. Chapters individually examine sociobiology, behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, memetics, and gene-culture coevolution. A final chapter reflects on the possibilities of integrating the various approaches.
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Can evolutionary theory really help us to understand human behaviour? This is an introduction to the science behind the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Wilson and Pinker. Including profiles of the major protagonists, the book provides a truly balanced account of evolutionary theories of human behaviour, and all their faults.

Kevin Laland is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the

Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. His research

encompasses a range of topics related to animal behaviour and evolution,

particularly social learning, cultural evolution, and niche construction. Gillian R. Brown is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of

Zoology, University of Cambridge. Her research covers various aspects of

primate behaviour, including parental investment, infant development and

sex differences, and she lectures on zoology and anatomy courses.

1. Sense and nonsense

2. A history of evolution and human behaviour

3. Human sociobiology

4. Human behavioural ecology

5. Evolutionary psychology

6. Memetics

7. Gene-culture coevolution

8. Comparing and integrating approaches

Further reading

References

Index