Sense and nonsense : evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour /

Laland and Brown (Cambridge Univ.) offer an informative, thoroughly documented book examining ways that evolutionary theory can help explain human social behavior. The "nonsense" of the title refers to racist and sexist misuse of evolution by earlier biologists and others, and consequent and persistent overreaction against evolutionary interpretations by many social scientists and antiscientific postmodernists. The authors examine strengths and weaknesses of five perspectives on human behavior: human sociobiology, human behavioral ecology, evolutionary psychology, memetics, and gene-culture coevolution (dual inheritance theory). Some are older than others, and they overlap. To some extent, human sociobiology gave rise to human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology (the latter is currently the most popular area of research). The authors are gene-culture coevolutionists, but they give a well-balanced account of each of the approaches and illustrate ways they can be integrated. Interesting examples and combinations of topics investigated through these approaches include human infanticide, group variation in adult lactose tolerance, and the phenomena of war and propaganda. This excellent book suffers from occasional typos, questionable usage, and citation errors, which could be corrected in later printings. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. E. B. Hazard emeritus, Bemidji State University