Adapting Minds: Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature

The book is organized into eight chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the basic principles of evolutionary biology, including natural selection, adaptation, heredity, genetic variation, and phenotypic development. Chapter 2 outlines the theoretical foundations of Evolutionary Psychology, particularly the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, the modularity of mind, and the concept of universal human nature. Chapter 3 critiques adaptationist reasoning, methods of identifying psychological adaptations, the claim that modern humans possess Stone Age minds, and the assumption of a psychologically uniform human species. Chapter 4, co-authored with Valerie Gray Hardcastle, examines modularity through developmental neurobiology, reassesses theoretical and empirical arguments for specialized mental modules, and considers domain-general cognitive mechanisms. Chapter 5 evaluates evolutionary theories of mating and purported differences between male and female mate preferences. Chapter 6 analyses marriage, monogamy, infidelity, sperm competition, and sex differences in jealousy. Chapter 7 examines parenthood, parental investment, discriminative parental solicitude, and claims concerning stepparent abuse. Chapter 8 investigates the philosophical concept of human nature, critiques individual and species essentialism, evaluates claims about human universals, and argues that human beings remain evolutionarily and developmentally unfinished.