Natural Selections: Selfish Altruists, Honest Liars, and Other Realities of Evolution

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“Barash . . . brilliantly integrat[es] science, literature, and pop culture into elegant and insightful commentaries on the most interesting and important questions of our time. A delightful read.”—Michael Shermer, author of The Science of Good and Evil

“Entertaining and thought-provoking.”—Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate

If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe.

David Barash is the author of The Myth of Monogamy and Madame Bovary’s Ovaries. He lives in Redmond, Washington.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781934137055

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press

Publication Date: 10-01-2007

Pages: 192

Product Dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

David Barash, professor of psychology at the Universityof Washington, is the author of over 20 books (among them Natural Selections, The Myth of Monogamy and Madame Bovary's Ovaries) and over 200 articles. One of the earliest proponents of "sociobiology" in the 1970s, now know as "evolutionary psychology" or "evolutionary biology," he remains among its most articulate popularizers.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents


Seductions of Centrality 9
Evolutionary Design Flaws, or, Why Bad Things Have Happened to Perfectly Good Creatures (Including Ourselves) 16
Mainstream Misconceptions 21
Neither Leaps Nor Bounds 32
Who's in Charge Here? 42
Material of Mind: A Surprising Homage to B. F. Skinner 49
Y B Conscious? 57
Intelligence 64
Let Us Reason Together 71
Believing Is Seeing 80
Evolutionary Existentialism and the Meaning of Life 86
The Tyranny of the Natural 98
Forbidden Knowledge? 104
Are We Selfish Altruists? Group-Oriented Individualists? (Or What?) 111
Dealing with Dilemmas: Personal Gain versus Public Good 118
The Ugly Underside of Altruism 126
Why Is Violence Such a "Guy Thing"? 136
One and a Half Cheers... 148
Honest Liars? 155
What Puts the Dys in Dystopia? 162
Evolution's Odd Couple 173
Index 185

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