Anne Innis Dagg.
"Love of Shopping" Is Not a Gene: problems with Darwinian psychology.
Black Rose Books. 2005
• If the genetic compulsion for rape is to produce babies, why are so many young boys and girls assaulted?
• Since homosexual behavior is common in hundreds of animal species, why do some assert that it is “unnatural” in people?
• How can it be generally claimed that males are dominant to females when this is true only in those cases in which the male is the larger?
• Since infanticide is claimed to be a male prerogative in lions, why do lionesses also kill cubs?
• If men, like male chimps, are aggressive because of their 98% DNA similarity, why aren’t women seen to be as randy as female chimps?
• Are Japanese children really the smartest? Or does the Japanese student motto “Pass with four hours’ sleep, fail with five” say it all?
In this provocative book, Anne Innis Dagg, an eminent and outspoken critic of Darwinian psychology (alias evolutionary psychology, alias sociobiology), addresses these and other relevant questions. She first presents an overview of the discipline and its popularity among both professionals and lay people, then examines concepts of social behavior based on “genes vs culture”—including topics of race, intelligence, homosexuality and aggression in the form of rape, infanticide, gang violence, war and general criminology.
Focusing on the problems present in much Darwinian psychological research—flawed data, faulty analyses, political motives—this controversial book offers a comprehensive critique of the topics that comprise the most popular scientific theory of the turn of the century: Evolutionary Psychology. In the end, a new perspective emerges which acknowledges the complexity of life by placing at its center the living organism, in its environment, rather than the gene.
“Love of Shopping” is sure to shake-up preconceived ideas!