Reddit mentions of Evolutionary Psychology (2nd Edition)

> It's a textbook. A textbook isn't referencing just one school of thought or one person's research.

Oh.. no, that's not how textbooks work. Textbooks, particular introductory textbooks, all heavily hinge on the opinions and beliefs of the author. Treat textbooks like wikipedia - they can be great introductions to broad topics but you certainly shouldn't believe that they aren't written from the perspective of the author.

That's not to say textbooks are incredibly faulty and irredeemably faulty, they're still great resources. I'm just pointing out that if you want information on evolutionary psychology then getting it from one of the proponents of what's called the "Santa Barbara Church of Psychology" can be a toss up in terms of quality of information.

> Someone you disagree with could write a textbook with information that you could still find very useful. I picked one of the first ones I saw from a well known academic just because the person who replied seemed very uninformed about the topic.

Certainly but I'm just pointing out how the user's comment about Tooby and Cosmides relates to your link - i.e. Buss is a part of their approach to evo psych.

>The textbook that was used for the class I took is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-2nd-Steven-Gaulin/dp/0131115294/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=evolutionary+psychology&qid=1549986717&s=books&sr=1-14

I'm not too familiar with Gaulin or the book, but looking at some of the people he thanks and who reviewed his work, it seems like it could be a fairly decent book (depending on how he approaches the topic and issues).

One easy indicator for me is to look to see whether the author 1) addresses criticisms of the field, and b) addresses them fairly. No serious researcher in evo psych is unaware of the criticisms of the field and no serious researcher would dismiss them as "misunderstandings" or "misrepresentations" and fail to engage with the core of the issues.

>Perhaps you would still link it back to Tooby and Cosmides. In such a case, I would say that it really, again, doesn't matter.

Well it would matter for the point I was making, which was simply that Buss is directly related to Tooby and Cosmides' view of evo psych. I wasn't even directly commenting on what that meant for the quality of the book, I was just pointing out the relevance of the user's comment above.

>The book I just linked to references a lot of different research. It's older now, though and the first textbook I found that was updated was the one I linked to.

Certainly but just to touch again on what I mention above, remember that the author has a specific perspective and they are in control of what research they cite to support the conclusion they want to. Textbooks aren't usually peer-reviewed so you aren't getting an objective overview of a field, you're getting a snapshot from the perspective of the author. That doesn't make the book useless or suggest that you should ignore it on that basis of course, it just means you should be aware of that and always be willing to question claims made within textbooks.

>What textbook in evolutionary psychology would you recommend?

I'm not sure it counts as a textbook but my personal favourite is "From Mating to Mentality: Evaluating Evolutionary Psychology". It's a collection of works from different evolutionary psychologists on their area of research and it gives a great carefully considered description of the state of the field. The final chapter "Evolutionary Psychology and the Challenge of Adaptive Explanation" gives a brilliant breakdown of the shortcomings of the field, as well as constructive solutions that some evolutionary psychologists have implemented to produce great research.

I'm currently reading through http://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-2nd-Steven-Gaulin/dp/0131115294/ref=dp_ob_title_bk/175-3534152-8165961 - it's definitely a more academic approach, but it goes over a lot of basic concepts with plenty of experimental examples. I find it really interesting and it touches on a lot more than gender roles if those aren't your cup of tea.

It's a textbook. A textbook isn't referencing just one school of thought or one person's research. Someone you disagree with could write a textbook with information that you could still find very useful. I picked one of the first ones I saw from a well known academic just because the person who replied seemed very uninformed about the topic. Charles Murray isn't considered a researcher in evolutionary psychology or respected scholar on the topic. The textbook that was used for the class I took is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Evolutionary-Psychology-2nd-Steven-Gaulin/dp/0131115294/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=evolutionary+psychology&qid=1549986717&s=books&sr=1-14 Perhaps you would still link it back to Tooby and Cosmides. In such a case, I would say that it really, again, doesn't matter. The book I just linked to references a lot of different research. It's older now, though and the first textbook I found that was updated was the one I linked to. What textbook in evolutionary psychology would you recommend?