Darwin's Descendants: Evolutionary Theories of Human Behavior and Their Critics

How evolution and culture have historically shaped our understanding of human behavior. Evolutionary explanations of human behavior have been perennial sources of contention ever since they originated over 150 years ago.In Darwin's Descendants, Allan V. Horwitz traces the debates that began with Darwin's earliest critics and shows how similar tensions animate conversations in classrooms, laboratories, and public culture today. Rather than treating biological and sociocultural explanations as rival camps, Horwitz examines how each perspective highlights different aspects of the traits, instincts, and norms that shape human life.Through vivid cases that reveal the interplay of inherited predispositions and cultural forces, he shows how instincts such as incest avoidance and emotional expression are behaviors with deep evolutionary roots.Other patterns, including the cultural celebration of courage or the dramatic decline in fertility across modern societies, reveal moments when social va