Back to the Stone Age
Two strong believers in evolutionary psychology tell us how we can live
better lives.
By ERICA GOODE

Evolutionary psychologists have been beating the Darwinian drum for some
years now, invoking the Victorian scientist's name to explain everything
from sexual attraction and infanticide to selfishness and infidelity.

But until now, they have been mostly content to put forward their ideas in
scholarly books, their bolder assertions -- that a proclivity for rape is
written in men's genes, for example -- stirring debate on the cocktail
circuit and in the halls of academe.

Now, however, two true believers in the power of evolutionary theory to
explain human behavior have taken the next step: they have written a
self-help book.

''Mean Genes,'' by Terry Burnham, a visiting scholar at the Harvard
Business School, and Jay Phelan, a biology professor at the University of
California, Los Angeles, proclaims itself ''the first book that converts
the modern Darwinian revolution into practical steps for better living.''

True to the self-improvement genre, the book makes use of personal
anecdotes, newspaper headlines, a smattering of research from
anthropology, psychology and other fields, and a ubiquitous first-person
plural to offer tips on how to lose weight, stop smoking, get out of debt,
find a husband and avoid the temptation to cheat on a spouse. The reasons
people find these challenges so daunting, the authors explain -- in a
reprise of the evolutionary psychology anthem made popular through books
like Robert Wright's ''Moral Animal'' -- can be traced to the years human
ancestors spent trying to survive and reproduce in a Paleolithic
environment.

People eat too much because, in that long-ago time, they never knew when
the next meal might come along. Husbands are unfaithful because spreading
their seed helped men reproduce their genes. Men lust after Playboy
bunnies and supermodels because they learned that an hourglass figure was
a sign of high fertility. ''Ancient and selfish, our mean genes influence
us every day in almost every way,'' Burnham and Phelan write. Yet there is
hope! Modern humans can overcome the sloth, greed, lust and covetousness
dictated by their genes if they know what they are fighting, the authors
inform us.

The only problem is that when it comes to besting those tough old human
weaknesses, Darwinian advice appears to be much the same as, well, the
guidance offered by Dear Abby, for example. Want to lose weight? Try not
keeping sweets around the house and avoid shopping when you are hungry.
Spending too much money? Remember that ''regardless of whether something
is called a loan application fee, an interest charge or a balloon payment,
all that matters is the interest rate.'' Want the boys to ask you out,
even though you are less than beautiful? ''Anyone can become significantly
more desirable by being considerate, staying physically fit and being
fiscally responsible.''

Many critics of evolutionary psychology (and, most likely, some
evolutionary psychologists themselves) will wince at the glibness of the
book's tone, the banality of its solutions, the sophomoric quality of its
jokes and the unblushing (some might say reckless) alchemy with which it
transforms hotly contested theory into unquestioned fact. And some
scientists will wonder whether the printing budget made it impossible for
Burnham and Phelan to credit them by name for their work (in the
acknowledgments, readers interested in such pesky details are steered to
the book's Web site, www.meangenes.org).

Still, while ''Mean Genes'' may be annoying, it offers a relatively
harmless introduction to the basics of evolutionary psychology and tries
hard to avoid topics, like rape, that have drawn the ire of feminists in
the past. As a result, the book is unlikely to raise many hackles. But
neither is it apt to help anyone lose weight.

Erica Goode writes about human behavior for The New York Times.

Oryginal:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/31/reviews/001231.31goodet.html

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