Author: Daniel Nettle
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
"Evolution and Genetics for Psychology explains how to think in evolutionary terms, and shows how to apply this thinking to any subject. With the principles in place, it goes on to show how they are applied to issues of human behaviour, from sex to social relationships, to learning." --Book Jacket.
Author: Eva Jablonka
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262525844
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577
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Book Description
A pioneering proposal for a pluralistic extension of evolutionary theory, now updated to reflect the most recent research. This new edition of the widely read Evolution in Four Dimensions has been revised to reflect the spate of new discoveries in biology since the book was first published in 2005, offering corrections, an updated bibliography, and a substantial new chapter. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb's pioneering argument proposes that there is more to heredity than genes. They describe four “dimensions” in heredity—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Jablonka and Lamb present a richer, more complex view of evolution than that offered by the gene-based Modern Synthesis, arguing that induced and acquired changes also play a role. Their lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors refine their arguments against the vigorous skepticism of the fictional “I.M.” (for Ipcha Mistabra—Aramaic for “the opposite conjecture”). The extensive new chapter, presented engagingly as a dialogue with I.M., updates the information on each of the four dimensions—with special attention to the epigenetic, where there has been an explosion of new research. Praise for the first edition “With courage and verve, and in a style accessible to general readers, Jablonka and Lamb lay out some of the exciting new pathways of Darwinian evolution that have been uncovered by contemporary research.” —Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT, author of Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines “In their beautifully written and impressively argued new book, Jablonka and Lamb show that the evidence from more than fifty years of molecular, behavioral and linguistic studies forces us to reevaluate our inherited understanding of evolution.” —Oren Harman, The New Republic “It is not only an enjoyable read, replete with ideas and facts of interest but it does the most valuable thing a book can do—it makes you think and reexamine your premises and long-held conclusions.” —Adam Wilkins, BioEssays
Author: Terry Burnham
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465046983
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Short, sassy, and bold, Mean Genes uses a Darwinian lens to examine the issues that most deeply affect our lives: body image, money, addiction, violence, and the endless search for happiness, love, and fidelity. But Burnham and Phelan don't simply describe the connections between our genes and our behavior; they also outline steps that we can take to tame our primal instincts and so improve the quality of our lives. Why do we want (and do) so many things that are bad for us? We vow to lose those extra five pounds, put more money in the bank, and mend neglected relationships, but our attempts often end in failure. Mean Genes reveals that struggles for self-improvement are, in fact, battles against our own genes -- genes that helped our cavewoman and caveman ancestors flourish but that are selfish and out of place in the modern world. Why do we like junk food more than fruit? Why is the road to romance so rocky? Why is happiness so elusive? What drives us into debt? An investigation into the biological nature of temptation and the struggle for control, Mean Genes answers these and other fundamental questions about human nature while giving us an edge to lead more satisfying lives.
Author: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780192860927
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science
Author: David M. Buss
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195372093
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 519
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Book Description
Capturing a scientific change in thinking about personality and individual differences, this volume provides theories and empirical evidence which suggest that personality and individual differences are central to evolved psychological mechanisms and behavioural functioning.
Author: Susan McKinnon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780976147527
Category : Evolution (Biology)
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Evolutionary psychology claims to be the authoritative science of "human nature." Its chief architects, including Stephen Pinker and David Buss, have managed to reach well beyond the ivory tower to win large audiences and influence public discourse. But do the answers that evolutionary psychologists provide about language, sex, and social relations add up? Susan McKinnon thinks not. Far from being an account of evolution and social relations that has historical and cross-cultural validity, evolutionary psychology is a stunning example of a "science" that twists evolutionary genetics into a myth of human origins. As McKinnon shows, that myth is shaped by neo-liberal economic values and relies on ethnocentric understandings of sex, gender, kinship, and social relations. She also explores the implications for public policy of the moral tales that are told by evolutionary psychologists in the guise of "scientific" inquiry. Drawing widely from the anthropological record, Neo-liberal Genetics offers a sustained and accessible critique of the myths of human nature fabricated by evolutionary psychologists.
Author: Michael Ryan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000262286
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
In this unique amalgam of neuroscience, genetics, and evolutionary psychology, Ryan argues that leftists and rightists are biologically distinct versions of the human species that came into being at different moments in human evolution. The book argues that the varying requirements of survival at different points in history explain why leftists and rightists have anatomically different brains as well as radically distinct behavioral traits. Rightist traits such as callousness and fearfulness emerged early in evolution when violence was pervasive in human life and survival depended on the fearful anticipation of danger. Leftist traits such as pro-sociality and empathy emerged later as environmental adversity made it necessary for humans to live in larger social groups that required new adaptive behavior. The book also explores new evolutionary theories that emphasize the role of the environment in shaping not only human political behavior but also humans' genetic architecture. With implications for the future of politics, the book explores how the niche worlds we build for ourselves through political action can have consequences for the evolution of the species. Proposing a new way of understanding human politics, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, the social sciences, and humanities, as well as general readers interested in political behavior.
Author: Lance Workman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107044642
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 565
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Book Description
Third edition of the classic undergraduate psychology textbook, entirely updated to combine traditional and cutting-edge research and additional pedagogical features.
Author: Peter LaFrenière
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1136945172
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
In this text, students are invited to rethink psychology by grounding it in the natural sciences with the understanding that evolutionary and developmental processes work together with culture to solve problems of human adaptation. These processes are cast as interdependent: Development cannot be understood except in the light of evolutionary theory, and the best proof of evolution is the fact of development. For students of evolutionary psychology, all the central topics -- such as evolved mental modules for theory of mind or language -- require an understanding of the developmental processes that lead to their expression. Genes, as important as they are, are never the whole story. The role of biological factors is explored in chapters outlining evolution, development, genetics, human origins, hormones and the brain. Then, the integrative value of this evolutionary/developmental vision in understanding key topics in psychology is illustrated by applying it to traditional area of inquiry including infancy and attachment, emotions and their expression, social relations with peers, cognitive and language development, sex differences, courtship and mating, violence and aggression, and cooperation and competition.
Author: Graham Bell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000497445
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 640
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Book Description
Originally published in 1982, The Masterpiece of Nature examines sex as representative of the most important challenge to the modern theory of evolution. The book suggests that sex evolved, not as the result of normal Darwinian processes of natural selection, but through competition between populations or species - a hypothesis elsewhere almost universally discredited. The book also discusses the nature of sex and its consequences for the individual and for the population, as well as various other theories of sex. Since the value of these theories is held to reside wholly in their ability to predict the patterns of sexuality observed in nature, the book seeks to provide an extensive review of the circumstances in which sexuality is attenuated or lost throughout the animal kingdom, and these facts are then used to weigh up the merits of the rival theories. This book will be of interest to researchers in the area of genetics, ecology and evolutionary biology.
