Reviews for The Evolving female

The average rating for The Evolving female based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-17 00:00:00 Rusty Wells I very much enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it about not only the stated topic but also about the role of primatology and anthropology in understanding the evolution of human behavior. Craig Stanford gives a clear, insightful summary of the thinking on human evolution as it relates to meat-eating, hunting, gender roles, altruism, and selfishness and their possible roles in leading to the evolution the human brain. The strategic use of sharing is especially complex especially as it is interpreted in our current society. I particularly appreciated his including, in the last chapter, Meat's Patriarchy, a discussion of the gender politics inherent in any discussion of evolved gender roles. Some quotes from the last two pages: "We receive conflicting messages in our society about the value of sharing. While a deep cultural value is given to altruistic sharing, we are also socialized to be individualistic. We learn that there are both power incentives and disincentives to share and be selfish. Either can be advantageous depending on the context; altruists can be strategically self-serving in myriad ways, and individuals who are otherwise selfish may see utterly altruistic at times. If these are qualities that served us in our distant ancestry, then perhaps that is why there is so much ambivalence about altruism and selfishness in society today." "The hunting, scavenging, and sharing of meat were fundamental features of the lives of our ancestors. This does not mean that we biologically driven to do any of these. The way that we deal with one another in society is rooted in social strategies that were molded during a time in our history when getting and using meat was vital. If meat were a currency with a 10,000-generation history in the human family, then the traditions that have developed related to the use of meat are likely to have some evolved basis. By sharing meat we are both altruistic and selfish, as we are in most other arenas of our endeavors. We are not simply compassionate by training and Machiavellian by nature. Nor are we constrained by our past to repeat Machiavellian patterns in the future. A fuller understanding of our ancestral nature is, however, the first step to liberation.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-13 00:00:00 Elliott Garnes I liked this book, because it brought me many new revelations. The book is not a deep read, so any one who wants a deep analysis of the hunting apes, and how some of their behaviours mirror our own, will not find this. Yet, for some one who is new, or relatively new to the subject, this book is quite fascinating. It is an easy read, and is quite approachable. I like this aspect of the book I also did not know that chimpanzees eat other monkeys. Wow!