| Can I Come Look At These Items? | | This online store is in association with Amazon.com, so these great, high-qualiy products will come from their warehouse or from other partners. Thanks for shopping! |
|
|
|
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do | 
 enlarge | Authors: Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa
Publisher: Perigee Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $0.99
You Save: $22.96 (96%)
New (43) Used (38) Collectible (1) from $0.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 211440
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 252
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0399533656
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.7
EAN: 9780399533655
ASIN: 0399533656
Publication Date: September 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
| • | Paperback - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do | | • | Kindle Edition - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters | | • | Audio Download - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters (Unabridged) | | • | Audio CD - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire---Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do | | • | Hardcover - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do | | • | MP3 CD - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire---Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do | | • | Audio CD - Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire---Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do |
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A lively and provocative look at how evolution shapes our behavior and our lives. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission that determines much of what we do, from life plans to everyday decisions. With an accessible tone and a healthy disregard for political correctness, this lively and eminently readable book popularizes the latest research in a cutting-edge field of study-one that turns much of what we thought we knew about human nature upside-down. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, enjoy watching a favorite TV show, or feel scared--walking alone at night, we are in part behaving as a human animal with its own unique nature-a nature that essentially stopped evolving 10,000 years ago. Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa re-examine some of the most popular and controversial topics of modern life-and shed a whole new light on why we do the things we do. Reader beware: You may never look at human nature the same way again.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 where the heck is the logic? December 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
wow, extremely disappointed with this book. The lack of logic and scientific reasoning was too overwhelming for me.
For example, the author asserted that blonde hair evolved with women in Scandinavia and northern Europe, (where women stayed bundled up) as an indication of their youth and fertility. In contrast to the people of Africa, where fertility can be visually assessed because they stay naked.
The authors did not consider other possible explanations such as genetic mutation, or simply difference in ideal.
After reading that chapter, I gave up on the book entirely.
Evolutionary Pseudo-psychology December 24, 2008
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
I am mortified that by purchasing this book, I might have supported the "research" of pseudo-scientist Satoshi Kanazawa, the principle author. I urge potential buyers to at least google Kanazawa, whose research shows that African countries are entrenched in poverty because of their low IQs, that women (regardless of race or culture) want to look like Barbie (the blond one) and that men enjoy pornography because their feeble brains can't distinguish between porn and the real thing. I will leave it to the adventurous reader to find the even more ridiculous theory for why women don't like porn. Kanazawa begins with tenuous assumptions of what IS and uses some tricky methods of backwards induction and guesses of what WAS to explain WHY. He combines interesting research conducted by people who seem to understand the scientific method with his own half-baked ideas to reveal his true bigotry. Please, don't fall for the catchy title like I did. Kanazawa is trying to bring eugenics and misogyny back into legitimate scientific discourse, and while I am all for freedom of speech, I sure wish I hadn't bought the book.
Beautiful Women are Dieting, & Thus Have More Daughters December 16, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I found this book interesting, but the biggest flaw is the title. The authors imply that somehow, our DNA is programmed so that Beautiful People Will Have More Daughters, because it is evolutionarily more advantageous to be beautiful if you are a woman rather than a man. However, there are scientific studies that show that caloric restriction leads to more females than males being born.
Imagine back on the veld: if there was a shortage of food, the population would be more likely to survive & propogate if there were more females than males. If there was an abundance of food, then the population could support more males than females, and only the best males would mate -- leading to better offspring.
Weight is often cited as an objective criterion of beauty. Suppose all of the 'Beautiful Women' are dieting to stay thin & beautiful (think of all of the starlets starving themselves), thus leading to more Beautiful Daughters.
The authors never address this, thus throwing into question the scientific rigor of the book.
The book is also sexist because it talks mostly about what men want -- markers of physical attractiveness. But in modern societies, in non-rape situations, women effectively get to choose which men have success mating. The authors spend little time talking about the traits that women seek, other than material wealth.
Nothing new or original December 3, 2008
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
A terrible way to popularize important subject and results of evolutionary psychology - very superficial (and at times purely wrong) treatment of the issues.
 Cavewoman Barbie October 25, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
There are weightier tomes of this type out there, but this is a readable book that covers the basics in a painless way.
Co-author Satoshi Kanazawa is an evolutionary psychologist at, of all places, The London School of Economics. He also blogs, often entertainingly, as "The Scientific Fundamentalist." His basic point is that humans still have inbred predilictions that were suited to our ancestors 10,000 years ago, and that these are not as easy to put behind us as some would like to believe.
The odd thing is not that what he has to say is especially revelatory. The larger part is not only obvious, but blindingly obvious. For example, he tells us most men find attractive a woman who approximates a Barbie doll and most women would like to look like one. He tells us the burdens of modern parenthood often make people unhappy. He tells us men are motivated by sex. He tells us women are more selective than men in their choice of sexual partners and that they take social and economic status into account. This hardly is startling stuff, yet he treads as cautiously toward his points as though he were traversing a snake pit. The odd thing is that he has cause to tread lightly.
Every era has a pre-packaged wisdom that one questions at one's social peril - in some cases physical peril. There is always much nonsense in the package, along with just enough truth to keep the whole thing plausible if you don't think about it too much. The "nurture is everything" crowd dominated social thought from the end of World War II until very recently. These folks have taken heavy body blows lately, but they still retain much influence. Public doubters need to be ready to be handed unpleasant "-ist" labels of various sorts by some of them.
Nevertheless, it is hard for nurturists to argue convincingly against many of the authors' points. Of course parenthood is a longer and more expensive (from laptops to college tuition) burden than it was 10,000 years ago when kids were net producers by age ten. Of course men do much of what they do to impress women. Of course women notice the status of potential partners. Zsa Zsa Gabor: "I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?" And so on.
Evolutionary psychology may not turn out to be the package that fully replaces the old wisdom, but it at least will be a part of it. One hopes the nuturists won't be excluded completely. After all, training may not be everything, but it is something.
|
|
|
| |
News 
