Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire -- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do by Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa

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We modern humans work hard to prove that we're an advanced species. Researchers Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa think that it's a losing battle. These evolutionary psychologists insist that we've never really transcended our prehistoric ancestors or, for that matter, our fellow primates; we just hide it better. To demonstrate their contention, they insist that men and women are still driven by 10,000-year-old impulses to find an optimal mate and produce healthy offspring. As the subtitle suggests, they link nearly every conceivable aspect of human activity to these primal drives; from selecting a favorite television show to finding religious faith. Sometimes politically correct, but always provocative.

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Now available in paperback—a provocative new look at biology, evolution, and human behavior "as disturbing [as it is] fascinating" (Publishers Weekly).

Why are most neurosurgeons male and most kindergarten teachers female? Why aren't there more women on death row? Why do so many male politicians ruin their careers with sex scandals? Why and how do we really fall in love? This engaging book uses the latest research from the field of evolutionary psychology to shed light on why we do the things we do—from life plans to everyday decisions. With a healthy disregard for political correctness, Miller and Kanazawa reexamine the fact that our brains and bodies are hardwired to carry out an evolutionary mission— an inescapable human nature that actually stopped evolving about 10,000 years ago.

Publishers Weekly

That mouthful of a title says it all. According to Kanazawa, a media-savvy researcher whose studies of "beautiful people" have been covered by the BBC and the New York Times, and the late Miller, a professor of social psychology, evolutionary psychology explains almost everything about human behavior. Proponents of what they call "the Standard Social Science Model" believe that the human mind is exempt from biological pressures, while evolutionary psychologists hold that people are an animal species driven by animal needs. The authors suggest that human evolution stopped when agriculture began changing the world much faster than the world could change us, and now 10,000-year-old impulses to find the right mate and produce healthy offspring control nearly every aspect of our existence, from choosing jobs to religious belief. This accessible book opens the youthful field of evolutionary psychology wide for examination, with results often as disturbing as they are fascinating. (Sept. 4)

Kirkus Reviews

A lively excursion into the new, and still disputed, field of Evolutionary Psychology. In this introduction, Miller, who died at age 44 of Hodgkin's Disease before the book's completion, and Kanazawa ask readers to examine the life choices they've made and re-cast them as evolutionary destiny. A female reader out there may remember the time she tried to dye her hair blonde and came out looking like Ronald McDonald, while a male might cast his mind back to the night he got drunk on Jim Beam and swore to go out looking for the bastard who stole his woman away. In fact, think of almost any foolish, or even sensible, thing you've ever done, and the authors would explain it as the result of the irresistible force of sexual selection, a cornerstone of the arguments underlying Evolutionary Psychology. Why do women want to be blonde? Because, argue the authors, men prefer to mate with blonde women. Why do men prefer to mate with blonde women? Because hair darkens as it ages, and so blonde hair (pre-Clairol) is a sign of youth, and therefore greater fertility and health. Why do men want to perpetrate violence on sexual rivals? Because men are forever less certain of the paternity of a child than women can be of the maternity, and to care for a child not of your own lineage is to let your genes die with you. While the explanations often feel more like elaborate exercises in logic than true science (after all, blondes are not indigenous to all parts of the world, so cultural forces must come into play somewhere), the authors do maintain a peppy, sly tone throughout the book, making each explanation (to questions such as, "Why is Sexual Harassment so Persistent?" and "Why are diamonds a girl's bestfriend?") interesting, if not entirely persuasive. The tone sometimes shifts toward an exasperated defensiveness, but because this is a relatively new, still hotly contested discipline, perhaps this is to be expected. Provocative, entertaining and often wholly unconvincing. Agent: Andrew Stuart/The Stuart Agency

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