The Moral Animal : Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology (Vintage) (book)

Is the main goal of EVERY male evo-psy writer to attack feminism? Here's an experiment for you: Juxtapose the ideas in this book and, say, Pinker's Blank Slate with those of,I don't know, ANY two female evo-psi writers and watch the incongruities jump off the pages. It's f&#%ing comical. But guess what? The females' books are way better thought out and accurate while the males' are a lot of wishful thinking. Hmmm....aging, successful man writes that lovely young lasses and aging, successful males are made for each other. That men are wired to treat sexually liberated women like s@&%, and to fawn over repressed,chastity obsessed airheads. Whatever.

I read the celebrated "Moral Animal" some 10 years ago, re-read it and underlined it at least twice. Finally I had found a theory of human nature and psychology I could wholeheartedly believe in. I was looking for a great quote from that book last week, but had loaned out both copies. I ended up buying a new one, and re-read the whole thing.

The quote is: "...humans are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse."

Experienced science journalist Robert Wright compiled the findings of this new area, evolutionary psychology (EP), for the lay reader in 1994 - and "Moral Animal" is still a timely treatise. Matt Ridley's excellent "Red Queen" was another book introducing EP around the same year. Wright writes in an engaging manner, intertwining his pearls with biographical sketches of Charles Darwin. Disclaimer: For those who are offended by the very suggestion that our behavior evolved from apes - and that our behavior is an elaborate, sophisticated manifestation of language and socialization which evolved by natural selection along with a huge brain - you won't like this book.

I realize the following assessment of mine is anecdotal, but here goes: I have seen step-children treated differently than genetic children. I have seen how men and women preen, peacock-like, showing off their best (?) sides during courtships, and how they pair off in society according to commonly accepted determinants of status, differing depending on sex. I have read about and subsequently observed how people (unconsciously?) score each other during their social interactions, rating relationship values for the future. I have observed how cheating (generic sense) is more rampant in very large groups where peer-pressure ceases to be such an important deterrent. Finally, game theory concepts utilized in EP are widely adapted and used in self-help books. I could go on with other examples, but, in short, I'm a sucker for EP.

Subsequently, I have read about resistance in university humanities departments to EP - humans being so special and all. We are - in the sense that our intelligence has given us free reign over our world - but humans are still very imperfect. We are poorly designed in many ways (backs, knees, tendency to war, self-delusion) - exactly what one would expect from evolution. Cockroaches or certain scorpions, which can live without food and water for almost a year, are also impressive. There is every reason to believe that our (at times) poor behavior evolved in just as Rube-Goldberg a fashion as did our (very complicated and redundant) blood clotting mechanism.

Anyway, this book is superb. I will close, since I could end up nattering on for more pages than most would want to read. Consider moving "Moral Animal" to closer to the top of your TBR list. A Best Buy.

As the great scientist Newton said "I see further for I stand on the shoulders of giants." Wallace may have seen something further than Darwin when he later in his life said that we have souls or spirits that is part of our humanity. I believe that the paradigm shift which brings into account ghosts and spirits when it comes to why we cannot fully explain humanity is overdue. I know the reader is skeptical when it comes to these kinds of things but I myself saw entities that could not be mistaken for anything else other than ghosts and spirits which is also observed by other human beings all over the world. I do not believe that they are non-material beings who co-inhabit this planet with us, because why do they mimic the physical form of humans since it is well known that the physical form of humans evolve so that it could be used in the physical world, such as legs for running, arms and hands for lifting material objects, etc. so it is most likely that these non-material beings mimic the physical form of humans because they are ghosts and spirits who once inhabit human bodies...I also do not believe that they are holograms. On the other hand, to me it is funny that people who believe in any form of God has a double standard. They believe in a God that they do not see but find it humorous to believe in ghosts and spirits that they also do not see! Isn't the two just diffirent manifestations of the afterlife? To me it is even easier to see a ghost than to see God. I believe they visit the physical world more often than God thus...you can hear people say "I saw a ghost last night" or "I saw a ghost in that old house" but I never really heard anyone say "I saw God." As for Scientists, wether they believe in a God or not, I cannot blame them for being skeptical about these kinds of matters for they cannot emperically observe ghosts and spirits. But not everything has to be observed. It is true that "observation is the key to knowledge" but Einstein stated that "imagination is much more important than knowledge." So that is the reason why I believe
Wallace saw something further than Darwin when he later on believe that we have souls that make us human, even though our animal bodies are also a product of evolution as like any other animals in this world, like the study of Chimpanzee behavior which are 95% the same as our DNA, there are eery similarities of how they behave in their society and how we behave in this world. All those power struggle, sexual jealousy, murder, male machismo, those are all rooted in our DNA. But unlike Chimpanzees we humans have souls, who can be FREE ENOUGH of our "bloodline", free enough of our bodily tendencies, to make decisions, to make choices and not just be overcome by our bodily tendencies. Also a reader may think that in this VAST UNIVERSE, ghosts and spirits THUS NOT FIT IN THE PICTURE...but what if this VAST UNIVERSE is a VAST RUSE...DESIGNED to trap an OVERLY INTELLECTUAL MIND...even scientists nowadays are admitting that when its comes to the study of humanity we are barely scratching the surface. Darwin and Wallace was both right about their observations of Evolution, but Wallace probably saw further for he probably knew that we cannot emperically observe everything...Science can only explain what it can observe...

This book shows humans in a very unflattering light. I'm reminded of the website that shows moviestars without make-up.
We, at the core, are shown to be selfish, manipulative, and calculatingly ruthless. Its very ugly. I highly recommend it. This should be a textbook. This will undoubtedly be hated by many with the same fervor that Darwin's theory is. Possibly more since one can see one's own behavior reflected back in these pages with less imagination than the acceptance of the ontological "evolution of man" where people don't see the our connection to cro-magnum.

The Moral Animal is a fascinating book that will change your understanding of human behavior. Robert Wright insight into the subject matter is clearly the result of extensive research, looking at civilizations around the world, yet he writes in a style that is friendly and accessible to most readers. From discussions on male and female approaches to relationships to sibling rivalry to self-deception, The Moral Animal provides an in-depth look into how evolution can explain human interactions and what the driving motives are for their behavior in a way that allows for compassionate understanding of it.