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Rating: 
Summary: Great book... a must read for human nature.
Review: Always tell a good book by the unavailability. Find it and keep it. Anthropology at its best... plus a little philosophy. Full of the sexual animal and his ultimate motivations...he understands Darwin and the human experience...few books do.
Rating:
Summary: Great book... a must read for human nature.
Review: Always tell a good book by the unavailability. Find it and keep it. Anthropology at its best... plus a little philosophy. Full of the sexual animal and his ultimate motivations...he understands Darwin and the human experience...few books do.
Rating:
Summary: The Big Broom
Review: Having a real weakness for broad inter-disciplinary sweeps that leave a lot of conventional thinking whimpering in the dust (as one finds in the work of Camille Paglia and John Ralston Saul), I enjoyed this book thoroughly. I must admit that my ignorance of a lot of the scientific material dealt with in this book leaves me vulnerable to an ornate argument. Still, Wright's pitch is aimed at the non-expert and I never felt in over my head. His back and forth between thesis and Darwin's life functions both to iluminate his argument and provide a breather between bouts of research and speculation. Stylistically, Wright is diligent and at times wry. I was initially attracted to the book by a blurb by Steven Pinker author of The Language Instinct. Philosophically, one can see their attraction but stylistically, Wright lacks Pinker's glee. A bit of term-paper drudgery seeps through the prose. As for the argument itself, Wright is General Grant, winning by dogged force and determination. At times, he squeezes a lot of juice from simple primate studies, but he has the wisdom to label specualtion as such. The seemingly circular logic of evolutionary psychology in which everything is interpreted through that paradigm and what doesn't fit awaits future clarification smells a bit of dogma and faith, but, again, Wright senses the objection and makes a good faith effort to explain it away, appealing to the difficulties inherent in asking for an evolutionary hypothesis capable of interpreting every bit of anthropoligical, archeological and genetic evidence. In any case, much of his argument seems quite availbale for disproof.Finally, Wright should be congratulated for going the whole route. Clearly, this new paradigm has profound political and philosophical implications which are not shied away from. Wright is not a philosopher but he lives up to the obligations of his argument and provides a utilitarian framework for us to ponder ethics for the newly self-aware species.
Rating:
Summary: Dr. J
Review: Mr. Wright's book should be considered required reading for anyone seeking insight into human (and animal) behavior. The Moral Animal begins with the increasingly popular theory that human evolution and behavior can be explained at the quantum level as well as, if not better than the macro-definable explanations with which we are all familiar. Additionally, the author provides excellent argument to support assertions that human behavior can be explained by evolutionary (or rather, co-evolutionary) forces.The neo-Darwinian model presented accounts for differences in general gender behavior and provides a format for policies that could work to solve some of our social problems. The explanations of "sex" wars, and why males and females have different life strategies are clear and strongly argued. The book offers an understandable explanation of where we came from, an insight on where we might be heading and reasons for why we are (historically) where we are now.
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