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Characterizing Human Psychological Adaptations
Ciba Foundation Symposium 208.
Chaired by MARTIN DALY
Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 1997
295 pp., 55 (hbk)
Did you choose your partner partly because you were attracted by smell of phenotypic products of his or her's major histocompatibility complex? This and many other compelling but seductive ideas are considered from an evolutionary adaptational perspective. The historical selection of psychological functions leading to improved survival is the theme; this is pursued with scientific rigor and a hungry passion. Sometimes the implications of an idea are presented more persuasively than is justified by the evidence. This is really a specialist text: not that those not interested in evolutionary psychology will be bored. I was excited, surprised, cynical and amazed by the hypotheses being explored. The task of exploring these hypotheses with scientific rigor...