Every marriage counselor should have a copy

Although this book doesn't directly deal with marital problems per se, reading it helps to gain understanding of both what is, and what is NOT particularly "natural" in man-woman relations (mating behavior).
As other reviewers have indicated, the main thrust of the book is to chronicle the thinking of evolutionary scientists as to the nature of non-directly survival oriented selection, i.e. selection outside the realm of the conventional "natural selection" of traits needed to survive to reproductive age. For this purpose, traits that may indicate overall offspring strength and health tend to be sexually selected for, based on the traits' difficulty to fake and conspicuous costliness. For example if a peacock can be so strong as to survive with such a heavy colorful predator attracting tail, well, he surely must be a strong peacock and, as such, quite sexy. The analog to the peacock tail for humans is, in general, extensive human intelligence.
But beyond detailing the various theses of sexual selection and its related evolutionary processes, the book also covers mating behavior of pre-civilization (Pleistocene) humans. Furthermore it notes that the amount of time civilization has existed, measured in reproductive generations, is so small that hardly an iota of genetic difference exists between civilized humans and pre-Neolithic hunter gatherers. (Some of the latter are still in existence today.) As such there can be no doubt that our basic genetic human nature is that of the hunter gatherer. Moreover, there is a material consistency in sexual/mating behavior of hunter gatherers, behavior that could be described as "natural". It's not prostitution, at least to the extent that hunter gatherers don't have/use money. It's not polygamy, this appearing as a kind of corollary to skewed distributions of power and wealth that occur in civilization. And finally it's not ultra long-term monogamy (marriage), also an outcome of civilization invented to deal with legal and economic matters concerning property, inheritance, education in child rearing, etc. Nope. The "natural", hunter gatherer way is described in the book a something akin to "serial monogamy", which across diverse hunter gatherer societies yields quite consistent observation of fairly strong temporary monogamous bonds, at least through to pregnancy. Such bonds may even extend through child birth and early baby care, but little continues after that. Half siblings and multiple lifetime lovers are more the rules than the exceptions.
With this sort of knowledge and understanding of both the evolutionary purpose and the more natural norms of human mating behavior, it seems possible that marriage counselors and their clients might be better prepared to come up with more apt solutions to marital difficulties. And I also suspect there's an important policy implication from this book for social and legal planners: invent renewable, one to five year term marriages.



Rating:


Some Credibility Checks On An Active Imagination

This young, obviously learned author has really "pushed the envelope" with his radically reductive explanations of human nature, and human behavior. Perhaps the time is ripe for an astute application of Sir Karl Popper's "falsifiability criterion," in order to restore some balance to an otherwise very creative account; for while creativity and imagination are essential to the advancement of science (or any other human endeavor), so is rigor. On the humorous side, I don't recommend that "dashing young suitors" share the underlying philosophy of human beings contained in this book with their favorite girlfriend--even if they privately believe it. Otherwise, they may find themselves "standing in the rain" and, literally, out of the gene pool. The "Queen of Hearts" can surely see and will usually prefer a heart in her "Gentleman." And it's still true that the heart knows things that reason (or scientistic materialism) knows nothing about (Blaise Pascal).

Rating:


Not Bad

Although I'm not too fond of evolutionary psychology (EP), simply because at the moment we can easily explain any psychological characteristic either socially, naturally, or both (each with convincing, but not concrete support), Miller's analysis of sexual selection is at times very intriguing. In particular, his explanation of sexual selections contribution to male/female ornamentation is very compelling.

However, other than that I found his arguments for the creativity and social characteristics of human culture overlook the power of socialization by maintaining that ALL our non-sexual behaviors are in fact side-effects of our ancestors' sexual behavior. Although very convincing while reading it, you should be aware that EP only attributes all behavior as being dictated by genetics because we have no other advanced culture to compare it to. Throughout the book, Miller avoids holes in his theory by dismissing those whose behaviors don't comply with it as anomalies (for example, people who are celibate). However, these are exactly what he needs to address, not because they're a rarity, but because they display the power of the opposing force he's neglecting: Nurture.

With all that being said, I still would have given it four stars for Miller's excellent account of the possibilities of sexual selection. He emphasized it more as a significant evolutionary force than any other book I've come across. However, he often had a tendency to ramble, and exhaust his analogies. When it finished, I'd been saying "enough" for about 150 pages.

Rating: