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Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour
Evolutionary theory is one of the most wide-ranging and inspiring scientific ideas, and it offers a battery of methods that can be used to interpret human behaviour. However, researchers disagree about the best ways to use evolution to explore humanity, and a number of schools of thought have emerged.
Sense and Nonsense, third edition, provides an introduction to the ideas, methods and findings of five such schools, namely sociobiology, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology, cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution. In this revised and updated edition of their successful monograph, Brown and Lala provide a balanced and rigorous analysis that scrutinises both the evolutionary arguments and the allegations of the critics, carefully guiding the reader through the mire of confusing terminology, claim, and counter-claim, and polemical statements.
This readable and informative introductory book will be of use to undergraduate and postgraduate students (for example in psychology, anthropology and zoology), as well as experts on one approach who would like to know more about the other perspectives and lay-persons interested in evolutionary explanations of human behaviour. Having completed the book, the reader will feel better placed to assess the legitimacy of claims made about human behaviour under the name of evolution and to make judgements as to what is sense and what is nonsense.
Sense and Nonsense, third edition, provides an introduction to the ideas, methods and findings of five such schools, namely sociobiology, human behavioural ecology, evolutionary psychology, cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution. In this revised and updated edition of their successful monograph, Brown and Lala provide a balanced and rigorous analysis that scrutinises both the evolutionary arguments and the allegations of the critics, carefully guiding the reader through the mire of confusing terminology, claim, and counter-claim, and polemical statements.
This readable and informative introductory book will be of use to undergraduate and postgraduate students (for example in psychology, anthropology and zoology), as well as experts on one approach who would like to know more about the other perspectives and lay-persons interested in evolutionary explanations of human behaviour. Having completed the book, the reader will feel better placed to assess the legitimacy of claims made about human behaviour under the name of evolution and to make judgements as to what is sense and what is nonsense.
288 pages, Paperback
Published March 13, 2025
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December 12, 2025
As an anthropology student, my experience of 90% of the sociobiological theory I’d previously encountered was at BEST dubious- and this is from a person who otherwise LOVES evolutionary science. It just gets employed to such stupid ends so frequently in anthropology and contemporary pop culture. But this book completely flipped my perspective on the subject. This discipline has been weaponized and misappropriated by some genuine freakers in its time, but the same can be said of anthropology and so many other social sciences. It doesn’t mean that there’s nothing of value to be investigated here, and there’s increasing so many holistic ways to do so! Shoutout niche construction, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution in particular. I’m so sorry for not understanding your hustle.
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