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Web End = Hum Nat (2017) 28:128132
DOI 10.1007/s12110-016-9281-8
Review of John Cartwrights Evolution and Human Behaviour: Darwinian Perspectiveson the Human Condition
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Peter B. Gray1
Published online: 13 December 2016# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016
Keywords Evolutionary psychology. Human behavioral ecology. Cultural evolution . Human behavioral evolution
Following previous editions in 2000 and 2008, the third edition of John Cartwrights text on Evolution and Human Behaviour appeared in 2016. In the preface to this third edition, Cartwright describes why the subtitle of this new edition no longer refers to human nature but rather the human condition, avoiding the dangerously essen-tialist concept of human nature, Whether readers of this journal agree with that concern, Cartwrights book is worth a careful look if you are seeking a general and current overview of evolutionary theory applied to human behavior, or if you are trying to identify a resource on the evolution of human behavior for teaching purposes.
The title of Cartwrights book refers to evolutionary perspectives rather than a single perspective. The book presents and interprets findings within evolutionary psychology, human behavioral ecology, and gene-culture coevolutionary frameworks. When briefly touching on contemporary low fertility in the UK, Cartwright alludes to the potential relevance of mismatch or maladaptive interpretations rather than optimality models of human behavioral ecology. However, when summarizing patterns in idealized body preferences such as waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs), he states This cultural variability . . . does pose a challenge to the strict nativist view of evolutionary psychology that our preferences were adapted to conditions in past environments (p. 283). The embrace of multiple evolutionary
* Peter B. Gray [email protected]
1 Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 455003, Las
Vegas, NV 89154-5003, USA
Hum Nat (2017) 28:128132 129
approaches helps make for a more integrative and even-handed book. So does discussion of variable interpretations of the same topic, avoiding a dogmatic singularity within an overarching evolutionary account.
The contents are tilted toward psychology, even as research from anthropology, biology, and other fields is referenced throughout. The inclusion of a great ape phylogeny and key species and trends in hominin evolution ensure explicit attention to human evolutionary history for embedding models of contemporary human...