Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Douglas Kenrick is a brilliant thinker, gripping speaker, and a writer whose style is so engaging, probing, and full of irreverence and wit that it is unmatched by anyone I know in academia. On top of his profound mastery of the study of evolution and behavior, he has a fascinating and quirky life story that adds color and richness to his academic expertise. He is also that rare individual with whom you'd be equally likely to want to have a drink and/or seek out to obtain keen insights into human motivation and behavior (and ideally both at the same time).”

 

 

“One of the founding fathers of modern evolutionary psychology, Doug Kenrick is also regarded as one of the most brilliant, creative, and accessible scholars in all of the social sciences. But a conventional scholar he is not: One part academic, one part comedian, and one part street fighter from Queens, Kenrick has ruffled a few feathers in his time. His crisp and witty writing, and his willingness to put scientific correctness before political correctness, will make readers think, laugh, and blush all at the same time.”

 

 

“Douglas Kenrick is a pioneer in evolutionary psychology. His scientific contributions to this relatively young field are impressive. In his psychology textbooks he demonstrates his remarkable gift as a teacher and his creativity as a science writer. All these credentials are reflected in the new book
Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life
. This volume promises to become one of the most exciting and authoritative books on the topic of evolution and human behavior, accessible to a broad readership.”

 

 

“Doug Kenrick is an ideal person to bring the real evolutionary psychology to the attention of a general audience. Not only has he done some outstanding research in this area but he is superb writer with that rarest of academic attributes—a sense of humor that translates well to the page. Readers of his book will enjoy themselves, unless they are grumpy academicians who have unfairly and inaccurately concluded that they do not have to pay attention to evolutionary psychology. The rest of us will have a fine time as we learn just how much evolutionary psychologists have to contribute to an understanding of our species.”

—John Alcock, Regents Professor of Life Sciences,
Arizona State University; author of
The Triumph of Sociobiology
,
Sonoran Desert Summer
, and
Animal Behavior

 

 

“When one thinks about evolutionary psychology—which is increasingly necessary in all of the behavioral sciences—one has to think of Douglas Kenrick. Because of his rarified abilities to identify, uncover, and communicate important answers to vital human questions, he is both at the center and at the top of this burgeoning scientific field.”

 

 

“Doug Kenrick is a brilliant thinker, a brilliant researcher, and a brilliant writer. His scientific discoveries dazzle and mesmerize, but they are also seminal. One testament is Kenrick's high professional profile. In my evolutionary psychology textbook, Kenrick's work is cited more than any other scientist. To top it off, Kenrick has a phenomenal sense of humor, unmatched by any other academic I've seen or heard; he could have easily been a professional stand-up comic. More to the point, he brings his wit and intellectual flair to dazzle readers, making the science of the human mind spring to life and grab readers around the throat. It's a certainty that Kenrick's book will be brilliant, witty, controversial, and a good bet to hit the best-seller list.”

 

 

“Kenrick is exceptional among psychologists in understanding the connections between our biological evolution and our brain processes, but he is also exceptional among evolutionary psychologists in applying this knowledge to issues that really matter—like who we love and who we hate, why people kill and save others, why they want meaning rather than chaos.”

 

 

“Doug Kenrick understood the meaning and significance of unconscious evolutionary drivers of social behavior long before that line of thinking became fashionable—his work on fundamental social motives, published in the top psychology research journals such as
Psychological Review
and
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
, has been a tremendously influential integration of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and the unconscious. This provocative and fascinating book will be as well.”

 

 

“Doug Kenrick is perfectly suited to write this kind of book: One that is intellectually dead-on accurate with respect to facts and exposition of theory, and yet engaging and thought-provoking to a wide audience. Kenrick is a leading scholar and researcher in the field of evolutionary psychology. He knows the field as well as anyone. He thinks deeply, critically, and clearly. At the same time, he's a brilliant writer and teacher—and as able to be engagingly witty as anyone I know. His wit may focus on some sensitive topics, but it's smart, intellectually insightful, and brilliantly illuminating.”