The mating mind
- Author
- Geoffrey Miller
- Published
Recommendations
Chapter 1. Central Park
Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of sexual selection in the evolution of the mind. Importance of sexual selection.
Problems with survival selection:
- Every trait must be explained as an adaptation for survival or an evolutionary byproduct.
- What survival advantages do music, art, sports, drama, and comedy provide?
- Traits not found in closely related species.
- The human mind is a courtship machine, rather than a survival machine. (p12)
- The mind may serve a function similar to a peacock’s tail. (p12)
- Evolutionary psychology needs to become more radical (see Miller on evolutionary psychology). (p15)
- Criticizes Steven Pinker’s view of art as an Evolutionary byproduct. (p15)
- Meanwhile, Pinker supports Geoffrey Miller in The Blank Slate. See Evolution of arts.
- Current evolutionary psychology treats sexual preferences as a result of evolution rather than a cause. (p17)
Sexual selection is much more intelligent than natural selection:
- Selection by the opposite sex rather than by the environment. Occupies a position somewhere between artificial selection and natural selection. (p22, 23)
- Positive feedback loops through sexual selection, sensitivity to initial conditions, and unpredictability. (p24-25)
Distinctive characteristics of sexually selected traits (see Evolutionary adaptation by sexual selection)
- Courtship adaptations become highly developed in sexually mature adults. (p28)
- They are much more extravagant and conspicuous in males. More precisely, the sex with less parental investment develops ornaments. (p28)
- They are strongly affected by the individual’s health and similar factors. (p28)
- Steven Pinker and John Tooby call for a focus on species-universal traits. But claiming that everyone must have equal artistic talent for art to count as an evolutionary adaptation is absurd. (p28-29)
Sexual selection theory has nothing to do with Freudian subconscious sexuality:
Sexual selection is a theory of evolutionary functions, not subconscious motives. My claim that particular human abilities evolved to attract mates does not mean that sex drives of the kind Freud described are operating behind the scenes. Just as a peacock’s tail needs no sexual subconscious to be sexually attractive, neither do our instincts for art, generosity, and creativity. —p29,30
Three problems concerning the evolution of the mind:
- Large brains and complex minds appeared only very late in evolutionary history, in very few species. (p32)
- The long delay between evolutionary brain expansion and clear survival benefits. (p33)
- What survival benefits come from humor, storytelling, friendship, music, art, and so on? (p34)
Criticism of Pinker’s elephant-trunk analogy (see The Language Instinct, Pinker on evolution of language):
- Unlike language, elephant trunks have the standard characteristics of survival adaptations: convergent evolution, adaptive radiation, and clear survival benefits. (p36)
- Humans’ distinctive abilities would be better explained by sexual selection. (p37)
To understand the mind’s evolution, it helps to consider past rather than modern environments. See Environment of evolutionary adaptation. (p37-38)
On problems with fossil records and archaeological evidence when studying the mind’s evolution. See Problems of human fossil records. (p40-43)
Conditions a theory of the mind’s evolution should meet.
Chapter 2. The Prodigal Returns
Chapter 2 summarizes the history of debates about sexual selection and explains why it has recently attracted renewed attention.
Facts sexual selection can explain:
Males continually compete to fertilize females. They threaten rival males with weapons and attract females with ornaments. Females exercise choice, rejecting weak, plain males and choosing strong, attractive ones. Over generations, weapons evolve to become more formidable and ornaments more elaborate. There are two results. First, males within a species diverge from the female standard. Mature males become much more strongly differentiated than females, juveniles, or ancestors. Second, species diverge very rapidly. A species’ weapons and ornaments evolve to look very different from those of closely related species. Darwin’s theory of sexual selection thus explains three puzzles: why many species have traits that do not aid survival, why sexes differ within a species, and how rapid evolutionary divergence between species occurs. —p68
Can lower animals appreciate elaborate ornaments?
Someone who thinks little of lower animals’ judgment and taste may deny that a female argus pheasant can appreciate such elaborate ornamentation. But then he must conclude that the male’s peculiar courtship posture—displaying the magnificent beauty of his plumage to the full—serves no purpose. This is a conclusion I cannot possibly accept. —p72, quoting Charles Darwin.
Why most mammals appear relatively unadorned:
Mate choice is constrained by an animal’s senses. Darwin knew some species have senses very different from ours. Understanding their sexual ornaments requires moving beyond our assumptions about what is perceptible and what is attractive. When we find another species’ sexual ornaments beautiful, it is usually because our senses happen to respond to the same stimuli in the same way as that species’ senses. Our primate color vision overlaps in sensitivity with that of many birds. This is why we find the colors and patterns of birds’ feathers beautiful. But as Darwin also noted, our noses are insensitive to odors that may be sexually appealing to other mammals. Our impression that most mammals are relatively unadorned is an illusion. —p74,75
Wallace on sexual selection.
Fisher on sexual selection (Runaway sexual selection, Fitness indicator).
Handicap principle by Amotz Zahavi.
Chapter 3. Runaway Brain
The hypothesis that the human brain evolved through Runaway sexual selection: Runaway brain.
He does not support this hypothesis. As an alternative, Chapter 4 proposes the brain-as-fitness-indicator hypothesis.
Chapter 4. A Mind Fit for Mating
The evolution of sexual reproduction (Evolution of sexual reproduction) and the brain as a fitness indicator: Brain as a fitness indicator.
Chapter 5. The Genius of Ornament
Chapter 6. Courtship in the Pleistocene
See Courtship in the Pleistocene.
Chapter 7. Evidence in Our Bodies
Chapter 8. The Art of Seduction
Chapter 9. The Virtues of Good Parenting
Chapter 10. Cyrano and Scheherazade
The evolution of language (Evolution of language) and verbal courtship.