Can Knowing How We Evolved Tell Us How We Should Live?: Evolutionary Self-Help as a Genre

Marc Hye-Knudsen

doi:10.1007/s40806-023-00369-w

Can Knowing How We Evolved Tell Us How We Should Live? Evolutionary Self-Help as a Genre

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Economics and Business Economics

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Abstract

Understanding our evolutionary past could well be crucial to successfully navigating the present. This, at least, is the premise for two new books in the emerging genre of evolutionary self-help, A Hunter-Gatherers Guide to the 21st Century (2021) by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein and Solving Modern Problems With a Stone-Age Brain (2022) by Douglas T. Kenrick and David E. Lundberg-Kenrick. Despite their surface similarity, the books typify two very different approaches to how we should be conducting evolutionary social science and what kind of lessons we can draw from it. Heying and Weinstein’s book is marked by speculation, with their self-help advice often being based on interesting but controversial and untested ideas. Kenrick and Lundberg-Kenrick instead content themselves with doling out mild-mannered advice based on only reasonably well- supported findings, which they review the evidence for. While perhaps less flashy and exciting, this latter approach is a more responsible model for the genre of evolutionary self-help.

Original language	English
Journal	Evolutionary Psychological Science
Volume	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-023-00369-w
Publication status	Published - 2023

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Cite this

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title = "Can Knowing How We Evolved Tell Us How We Should Live?: Evolutionary Self-Help as a Genre",

abstract = "Understanding our evolutionary past could well be crucial to successfully navigating the present. This, at least, is the premise for two new books in the emerging genre of evolutionary self-help, A Hunter-Gatherers Guide to the 21st Century (2021) by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein and Solving Modern Problems With a Stone-Age Brain (2022) by Douglas T. Kenrick and David E. Lundberg-Kenrick. Despite their surface similarity, the books typify two very different approaches to how we should be conducting evolutionary social science and what kind of lessons we can draw from it. Heying and Weinstein{\textquoteright}s book is marked by speculation, with their self-help advice often being based on interesting but controversial and untested ideas. Kenrick and Lundberg-Kenrick instead content themselves with doling out mild-mannered advice based on only reasonably well- supported findings, which they review the evidence for. While perhaps less flashy and exciting, this latter approach is a more responsible model for the genre of evolutionary self-help.",

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AB - Understanding our evolutionary past could well be crucial to successfully navigating the present. This, at least, is the premise for two new books in the emerging genre of evolutionary self-help, A Hunter-Gatherers Guide to the 21st Century (2021) by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein and Solving Modern Problems With a Stone-Age Brain (2022) by Douglas T. Kenrick and David E. Lundberg-Kenrick. Despite their surface similarity, the books typify two very different approaches to how we should be conducting evolutionary social science and what kind of lessons we can draw from it. Heying and Weinstein’s book is marked by speculation, with their self-help advice often being based on interesting but controversial and untested ideas. Kenrick and Lundberg-Kenrick instead content themselves with doling out mild-mannered advice based on only reasonably well- supported findings, which they review the evidence for. While perhaps less flashy and exciting, this latter approach is a more responsible model for the genre of evolutionary self-help.

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