Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What WeDo [Paperback]

Alan S. Miller (Author), Satoshi Kanazawa (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 2, 2008

Now available in paperback?a provocative new look at biology, evolution, and human behavior ?as disturbing [as it is] fascinating? (Publishers Weekly).

Why are most neurosurgeons male and most kindergarten teachers female? Why aren?t there more women on death row? Why do so many male politicians ruin their careers with sex scandals? Why and how do we really fall in love? This engaging book uses the latest research from the field of evolutionary psychology to shed light on why we do the things we do?from life plans to everyday decisions. With a healthy disregard for political correctness, Miller and Kanazawa reexamine the fact that our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission? an inescapable human nature that actually stopped evolving about 10,000 years ago.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

That mouthful of a title says it all. According to Kanazawa, a media-savvy researcher whose studies of beautiful people have been covered by the BBC and the New York Times, and the late Miller, a professor of social psychology, evolutionary psychology explains almost everything about human behavior. Proponents of what they call the Standard Social Science Model believe that the human mind is exempt from biological pressures, while evolutionary psychologists hold that people are an animal species driven by animal needs. The authors suggest that human evolution stopped when agriculture began changing the world much faster than the world could change us, and now 10,000-year-old impulses to find the right mate and produce healthy offspring control nearly every aspect of our existence, from choosing jobs to religious belief. This accessible book opens the youthful field of evolutionary psychology wide for examination, with results often as disturbing as they are fascinating. (Sept. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

That mouthful of a title says it all. According to Kanazawa, a media-savvy researcher whose studies of "beautiful people" have been covered by the BBC and the New York Times, and the late Miller, a professor of social psychology, evolutionary psychology explains almost everything about human behavior. Proponents of what they call "the Standard Social Science Model" believe that the human mind is exempt from biological pressures, while evolutionary psychologists hold that people are an animal species driven by animal needs. The authors suggest that human evolution stopped when agriculture began changing the world much faster than the world could change us, and now 10,000-year-old impulses to find the right mate and produce healthy offspring control nearly every aspect of our existence, from choosing jobs to religious belief. This accessible book opens the youthful field of evolutionary psychology wide for examination, with results often as disturbing as they are fascinating. (Publishers Weekly) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade; Reprint edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399534539
• ISBN-13: 978-0399534539
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #527,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

234 of 251 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "What would a savanna-raised primate do?" September 3, 2007

By R Schmidt VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

What happens when two psychologists write a book on why people do the things they do?

It gets a loooong title: Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do.

This book, written primarily by Alan Miller, has, as its core, a commitment to the Savanna Principle: "The human brain has difficulty comprehending and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment" (p. 21).

In other words, look to humans (or early hominids) hundreds of thousands of years ago to get a clue to why, well, if Hillary Clinton is elected President of the US, she will not have an affair.

Intriguing?

This book is going to irritate some, be the subject of water cooler conversations, be involved in harassment complaints (seriously... someone is going to use the "Savanna Principle defense"), and hit the Jay Leno show. How can it not, when it is rich with topics like:

- The human "semen displacement device" (p. 85).
- The "horny sister hypothesis" (p. 181).
- The myth of the midlife crisis (p. 140).
- Why most suicide bombers are Muslim (p. 165).
- Why do children love their parents (p. 187).

The authors revisit early humans in the savanna. What strategies, environmentally and genetically based, lead to humans making more copies of themselves than other strategies ("genetic fitness"). How did natural selection affect humans from the shoulders up?

When I first read the "Savanna Principle" ( "The human brain has difficulty comprehending and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment"), I immediately thought of some very non-savanna issues: flying a F-22 Raptor, performing Shakespeare, developing open heart surgery... very non-ancestral environment human activities and accomplishments. I would say that the human brain does not have difficulties here. We are very trainable. Yet the focus of this book is on our interactions with other people, particularly male-female interactions.

I was immediately reminded of an earlier book titled Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine, by Randolph Nesse and George C. Williams. They also took the view that we can better understand human health and sickness with a "Savanna Principle" approach.

The book is really hypothesis based. There are many ideas here, some of which will be found to be untrue, but others will be found to be true. These hypotheses are out there for scientists to investigate. In fact, just this morning there was an article in the newspaper that indicated researchers had proven (this will be debatable) that men are attracted to good-looking women, while women are attracted to good providers.

What would a savanna-raised primate do?

199 of 213 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Brutally honest, if somewhat flawed November 20, 2007

By Eli C.

Format:Hardcover

The authors of this book have done an excellent job giving the reader a simple overview of the relatively new field of evolutionary psychology. Unfortunately, they tend to rely on a number of gimmicks to "spruce up" some questionable theorizing. On the whole however, readers will find many traditionally liberal and conservative social assumptions not only critiqued, but in many cases demolished entirely.

Two minor grievances I had: The authors repeatedly refer to natural selection with flavorful yet somewhat incorrect language. For example, explaining the universal male preference for youthful women, they describe men as looking for the most fertile partner. Yet men have no such interest. It is the process of SELECTION which has given certain men the adaptation (desire for youth) allowing them the procreational advantage.

My other grievance concerns the reductionism with which they assault the "traditional social scientific view". Absurdly, they declare that most social scientists find little biological basis for human behavior. While their adoption of biological explanations is certainly greater and more radical, the social science "norm" lies more precisely at a middle ground between the age-old nature/nurture polarities. I'm sure they fancy themselves more courageous this way, but it's quite fallacious.

That said, however, the book is a fascinating primer on evolutionary psychology, and highly recommended.

190 of 204 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Really nice introduction to evolutionary psychology November 24, 2007

By Or Golan

Format:Hardcover

This book is really good, because besides a few repetitions it really is interesting and presents novel ideas (at least to people like me, who are not familiar with this topic) to old questions. It is really easy to understand, not too complicated, and shows the whole picture, not just the ideas the authors think are right, but the the other side as well (even tho they try their best to point out what they believe in, but thats reasonable). It really isn't biased and is a really good book, I recommend it to anyone who isn't afraid of new ideas.