>> Essential Animal Behavior

Graham Scott,
Blackwell Publishing| ISBN: 0632057998|
2005|PDF|215 Pages|3,6 MB|

Essential Animal Behavior provides a comprehensive introduction to all areas of the subject: from the genetic and neurobiological control of behavior to the learning, development, and function of behavior in an evolutionary context. Social behaviour is also covered throughout the text.Written in a concise and engaging style, this new book:- includes examples from both marine and terrestrial environments around the world- places current research alongside classic examples, and- puts the study of animal behavior in an applied context, emphasizing the implications for animal welfare and animal conservation.Carefully designed to meet the needs of students coming to the subject for the first time, the book includes the following features:- key concept boxes- Focus on boxes- chapter summaries- guided reading to aid revision and further study- case studies and boxed examples that reinforce essential points, and- questions for discussion.This book is essential reading for degree-level students following modular programs in biology, zoology, marine biology, and psychology.

The Biological Roots of Human Nature: Forging Links between Evolution and Behavior

Timothy H. Goldsmith,
Oxford University Press| ISBN 0195093933| 1994|PDF|176 Pages|8.06 MB|

In this stimulating book, Goldsmith argues that biology has a great deal to say that should be of interest to social scientists, historians, philosophers, and humanists in general. He believes that anyone studying the social behavior of humans must take into consideration both proximate cause--the physiology, biochemistry, and social mechanisms of behavior--and ultimate cause--how the behavior came to exist in evolutionary time. Goldsmith, a neurobiologist, draws examples from neurobiology, psychology, and ethology (behavioral evolution). The result is a work that overcomes many of the misconceptions that have hindered the rich contributions the biological sciences have to offer concerning the evolution of human society, behavior, and sense of identity. Among the key topics addressed are the nature of biological explanation, the relationship between genes and behavior, those aspects of behavior most likely to respond to natural selection, the relationship between evolution and learning, and some probable modes of interaction between cultural and biological evolution. By re-examining the role of biological explanation in the domain of social development, the author has significantly advanced a more well-rounded view of human evolution and shed new light on the perennial question of what it means to be human. His book will appeal to biologists, social scientists, traditional humanists, and interested general readers.

>> Second Nature: Economic Origins of Human Evolution

Haim Ofek,
Cambridge University Press| 2004| PDF|
1.4 MB| 265 Pages| ISBN 0521625343|


This book spans two million years of human evolution and explores the impact of economics on human evolution and natural history. The theory of evolution by natural selection has always relied in part on progress in areas of science outside of biology. By applying economic principles at the borderlines of biology, Haim Ofek shows how some of the outstanding issues in human evolution, such as the increase in human brain size and the expansion of the environmental niche humans occupied, can be answered. He identifies distinct economic forces at work, beginning with the transition from the feed-as-you-go strategy of primates, through hunter-gathering and the domestication of fire to the development of agriculture. This highly readable book will inform and intrigue general readers and those in fields such as evolutionary biology and psychology, economics, and anthropology.

Evolutionary Explanations of Human Behaviour (Routledge Modular Psychology)

John Cartwright,
Routledge| ISBN 0415241472| 2001|
PDF| 210 Pages| 37.45 MB|

In recent years, a new discipline has arisen that argues human behaviour can be understood in terms of evolutionary processes.Evolutionary Explanation of Human Behaviour is an introductory level book covering Evolutionary Psychology, this new and controversial field. The book deals with three main areas: human reproductive behaviour, evolutionary explanations of mental disorders and the evolution of intelligence and the brain. The book is particularly suitable for the AQA-A A2 syllabus, but will also be of interest to undergraduates studying evolutionary psychology for the first time and anyone with a general interest in this new discipline.

>> Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists

Jerome H. Barkow,
Oxford University Press| ISBN 0195130022| 2006| PDF| 311 pages| 1 MB|

In The Adapted Mind, Jerome Barkow, along with Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, set out to redefine evolutionary psychology for the social sciences and to create a new agenda for the next generation of social scientists. While biologically oriented psychologists quickly accepted the work, social scientists in psychology and researchers in anthropology and sociology, who deal with the same questions of human behavior, were more resistant. Missing the Revolution is an invitation to researchers from these disciplines who, in Barkow's view, have been missing the great evolution-revolution of our time to engage with Darwinian thought, which is now so large a part of the non-sociological study of human nature and society.
Barkow asks the reader to put aside the preconceptions and stereotypes social scientists often have of the "biological" and to take into account a powerful paradigm that is far away from those past generations who would invoke a vocabulary of "genes" and "Darwin" as justification for genocide. The evolutionary perspective, Barkow maintains, provides no particular support for the status quo, no rationalizations for racism or any other form of social inequality. "Cultural" cannot possibly be opposed to "biological" because culture and society are the only means we have of expressing our evolved psychology; social-cultural constructionism is not only compatible with an evolutionary approach but demanded by it. To marshal evidence for his argument, Barkow has gathered together eminent scholars from a variety of disciplines to present applications of evolutionary psychology in a manner intended to illustrate their relevance to current concerns for social scientists.
The contributors include, among others, evolutionary psychologist Anne Campbell, a Darwinian feminist who reaches out to feminist social cosntructionists; sociologist Ulica Segarstrale, who analyzes the opposition of the "cultural left" to Darwinism; sociologist Bernd Baldus, who criticizes evolutionists for ignoring agency; criminologist Anthony Walsh, who presents a biosocial criminology; and primatologists Lars Rodseth and Shannon A. Novak, who reveal an unexpected uniqueness to human social organization. Missing the Revolution is a challenge to scholars to think critically about a powerful social and intellectual movement which insists that the theoretical perspective that has been so successful when applied to the behavior of other animal species can be applied to our own.

>> Psychology and Human Nature

Peter Ashworth,
Routledge Publishing| ISBN 0415213002|
2000| PDF| 210 Pages| 7 MB| 210 pages|

Psychology and Human Nature problematizes what psychology usually takes for granted-the meaning of the psyche or 'human nature'. The author provides a coherent account of many of the major schools of thought in psychology and its related disciplines, including: sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, radical behaviourism, existentialism, discursive psychology and postmodernism. For each approach he considers the claims or assumptions being made about 'human nature', especially regarding issues of consciousness, the self, the body, other people and the physical world.

The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature

Geoffrey F. Miller,
Anchor Books | ISBN 038549517X| 2001|
PDF | 1.94 MB| 528 Pages|

Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial, it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In The Mating Mind, he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music, and literature.
Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller compares it to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project, which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence that Miller brings to bear on it. Steeped in popular culture, the book mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness indicators, and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins. Indeed, Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).
That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove comforting, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analyzing humor. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, The Mating Mind is formidable, its agent-provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest.

>> The Nature of Intelligence

Gregory R. Bock, Jamie A. Goode, Kate Webb
John Wiley & Sons| ISBN 0471494348 | 2000| PDF| 309 Pages| 1.6 MB|

Evolutionary psychology and behavioural genetics are two successful and important fields in the study of human behaviour, but practitioners in these subjects have different conceptions of the nature of human intelligence. Evolutionary psychologists dispute the existence of general intelligence and emphasise the differences among species. They argue that natural and sexual selection would be expected to produce intelligences that are specialised for particular domains, as encountered by particular species. Behavioural geneticists consider general intelligence to be the most fundamental aspect of intelligence and concentrate on the differences between individuals of the same species.
This exciting book features papers and discussion contributions from leading behavioural geneticists, evolutionary psychologists and experts on intelligence that explore the differences and the tensions between these two approaches. The nature of 'g' or general intelligence is discussed in detail, as is the issue of the heritability of intelligence. The alternative approaches that emphasise domain-specific intelligences are explored, alongside wide-ranging discussions on a broad range of issues such as the biological basis for intelligence, animal models and changes in IQ scores over time.

Introducing Evolutionary Psychology

Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate,
Totem Books| ISBN 1840460431| 2000| PDF| 176 Pages| 24.4 MB|
Drawing on the insights of evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology, as well as data from anthropology, primatology and archaeology, evolutionary psychologists are beginning to piece together the first truly scientific account of human nature. Introducing Evolutionary Psychology is the perfect introduction to this exciting new field. Clearly and concisely written by Dylan Evans, and superbly illustrated by award-winning artist Oscar Zarate, it offers a fascinating view of the history of the mind.