Sociologists and social and cultural anthropologists have largely missed a major intellectual revolution of our time: the application to our own species of the Darwinian framework that has been spectacularly successful in explaining the behaviors and societies of every other species in the natural world. This volume demonstrates the utility of the evolutionary approach for the social sciences, while discussing the confusions and unfounded fears that have in the past made this scientific perspective seem so controversial. Our evolved psychology is foundational for fields ranging from feminism t ... More

Sociologists and social and cultural anthropologists have largely missed a major intellectual revolution of our time: the application to our own species of the Darwinian framework that has been spectacularly successful in explaining the behaviors and societies of every other species in the natural world. This volume demonstrates the utility of the evolutionary approach for the social sciences, while discussing the confusions and unfounded fears that have in the past made this scientific perspective seem so controversial. Our evolved psychology is foundational for fields ranging from feminism to criminology, an insight obscured by the endemic speciesism that has led the social sciences to nearly miss the revolution.