Although researchers have long been aware that the species-typical architecture of the human mind is the product of our evolutionary history, it has only been in the last three decades that advances in such fields as evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and paleoanthropology have made the fact of our evolution illuminating. Converging findings from a variety of disciplines are leading to the emergence of a fundamentally new view of the human mind, and with it a new framework for the behavioral and social sciences. First, with the advent of the cognitive revolution, human nature can finally be defined precisely as the set of universal, species-typical information-processing programs that operate beneath the surface of expressed cultural variability. Second, this collection of cognitive programs evolved in the Pleistocene to solve the adaptive problems regularly faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors--problems such as mate selection, language acquisition, cooperation, and sexual infidelity. Consequently, the traditional view of the mind as a general-purpose computer, tabula rasa, or passive recipient of culture is being replaced by the view that the mind resembles an intricate network of functionally specialized computers, each of which imposes contentful structure on human mental organization and culture. The Adapted Mind explores this new approach--evolutionary psychology--and its implications for a new view of culture.

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Jerome H. Barkow is at Dalhousie University.

"It is not often that the coal-face of science can be reached even by educated bystanders. Discoveries are usually hidden down long tunnels of jargon and complication, and the layman must wait for interpreters to bring garbled news of them to the surface. This book is a rare exception, a volume of fresh and original research of momentous significance that is written in such a way that ordinary mortals can immediately join the debate." --The Economist

"A fascinating book which deserves a wide audience." --European Medical Journal

"There are two kinds of landmark publications in science: those that open a new era, like Darwin's The Origin of Species, or those that mark an important waypoint in a scientific revolution that has already begun. The Adapted Mind is an example of the latter, comprising as it does a collection of eighteen papers by twenty-five authors which sum up and illustrate much of the best of our knowledge in the field of evolutionary psychology." --Christopher Badcock, London School of Economics, ESS Newsletter

"I have rarely come across a book with such a fiery message. this is without doubt a critically important book, one that anybody concerned with the human mind should study. With evident passion, the editors dare to propose a new agenda for the whole of the social sciences...It is an agenda that has much to offer and will provide great insights into human behavior."--Journal of Anthropological Research

"A wonderful book. An excellent compendium of ground breaking theory and research in evolutionary psychology."--Professor Stephen Colarelli, Central Michigan University