The Mating Mind How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature

At once a pioneering study of evolution and an accessible and lively reading experience,The Mating Mindmarks the arrival of a prescient and provocative new science writer. Psychologist Geoffrey Miller offers the most convincingand radicalexplanation for how and why the human mind evolved. Consciousness, morality, creativity, language, and art: these are the traits that make us human. Scientists have traditionally explained these qualities as merely a side effect of surplus brain size, but Miller argues that they were sexual attractors, not side effects. He bases his argument on Darwin's theory ofsexualselection, which until now has played second fiddle to Darwin's theory ofnaturalselection, and draws on ideas and research from a wide range of fields, including psychology, economics, history, and pop culture. Witty, powerfully argued, and continually thought-provoking,The Mating Mindis a landmark in our understanding of our own species.

Geoffrey F. Miller is senior research fellow at the Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution at University College, London. Born in 1965 in Cincinnati, he studied at Columbia University and received a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Stanford University. After moving to Europe, he worked at the Universities of Sussex and Nottingham and at the Max Planck Institute of Psychological Research in Munich. He lives in Surrey with his family.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>