Human Nature: A Critical Reader

This book is a compilation of 18 pioneering articles on Darwinism.Very original is the fact that the different authors are commenting on their research 10 or more years after the publication.One needs a rather profound knowledge of statistics in order to fully understand some, not all, the articles.These researches were not only very original but sometimes also disturbing, like Hrdy's work on infanticide, or Chagnon's research on the Yanomanö tribe, which was used against the tribe by 'financial' interests in the 'development' of their territory.For me, the most important article was the one by Tooby and Cosmides, who brilliantly refuted and even ridiculed the SSS Model of the content-free, independent mind. They proved that the human mind is not a blank which works with general purpose mental processes. On the contrary, the mind contains specialized mechanisms which evolved as adaptations to the social environment (see also, Lumsden and Wilson's 'Promethean Fire').This book is an essential read for all those who are interested in the human nature.