Search results for ""Author Geoffrey Miller""

An intelligently provocative book about Darwin’s ‘other’ theory discusses the curious ways in which sexual attraction has influenced the evolution of the human mind.Many aspects of the human mind remain mysterious. While Darwinian natural selection can explain the evolution of most life on earth, it has never seemed fully adequate to explain the aspects of our minds that seem most uniquely and profoundly human - art, morality, consciousness, creativity and language. Yet these aspects of human nature need not remain evolutionary mysteries. Until fairly recently most biologists have ignored or rejected Darwin's claims for the other great force of evolution - sexual selection through mate choice, which favours traits simply because they prove attractive to the opposite sex. But over recent years biologists have taken up Darwin's insights into how the reproduction of the sexiest is as much a focus of evolution as the survival of the fittest.Witty, powerfully-argued and continually thought-provoking, Miller's cascade of ideas bears comparison with such critical books as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene and Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct. It is a landmark in our understanding of our own species.

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Human intelligence is sexually attractive, and strongly predicts the success of sexual relationships, but the behavioral sciences have usually ignored the interface between intelligence and mating. This is the first serious scholarly effort to explore that interface, by examining both universal and individual differences in human mating intelligence. Contributors include some of the most prominent evolutionary psychologists and promising new researchers in human intelligence, social psychology, intimate relationships, and sexuality.David Buss’ foreword and the opening chapter explore what ‘mating intelligence’ means, and why it is central to human cognition and sexuality. The book’s six sections then examine (1) our mating mechanisms — universal emotional and cognitive adaptations for mating intelligently — that guide mate search, mate choice, and courtship; (2) how mating intelligence strategically guides our choice of mating tactics and partners given different relationship goals, personality traits, forms of deception, and the existence of children; (3) the genetic and psychiatric causes of individual differences in mating intelligence; (4) how we use mental fitness indicators — forms of human intelligence such as creativity, humor, and emotional intelligence — to attract and retain sexual partners; (5) the ecological and social contexts of mating intelligence; (6) integrative models of mating intelligence that can guide future research.Mating Intelligence is intended for researchers, advanced students, and courses in human sexuality, intimate relationships, intelligence research, behavior genetics, and evolutionary, personality, social, and clinical psychology.

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