The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating

Buss makes a case for evolutionary explanations to human mating. The overall idea is that men and women have evolved to have two different strategies to maximize their number of offspring. The strategies is not conscious, calculated strategies, but is rather developed as different desires and behavior in men and women with regards to mating. In short, men want to have sex with as many women as possible and in the end settle with a woman while women would prefer to find one man with lot of resources to settle down with straight away.

It is of course quite a controversial area of research so I can see how one group hails it as a courageous explaining how the world really is while another group hates it a sees it perpetuating old myths and show more disregarding counter examples.
The second group can certainly point to some unconvincing parts of the book. Buss offers no explanation to homosexuality, which you would think would be the one thing evolution would make impossible since homosexual relations doesn't result in children, but simply confesses that it is a big unsolved paradox for evolutionary biology. Critics would likely also point out that a lot of these studies is quite small and done with American college students (and very often done by Buss himself) which raises the question about how generalizable the results really are. Some of the hypothesis he gives is also quite unconvincing. Like when he claims women are moody to test men's commitment to the relationship. Or that a woman showing signs of submissiveness in bars is a sign to men they can approach without fearing hostility.

For some the above mentioned will be enough to dismiss the book. But for me it isn't. While some of his claims are a bit out there, I find most of them plausible and the big picture they give shape to quite convincing. It is not an area of study that lends itself to experimental research, but a lot of the data fits very neatly. One example is how divorce rates go down in society with a surplus of men, while they go up in a society with a surplus of women. Or how men gives premium status to the physical attractiveness of women, while women gives much more weight to the general status of a man. One study found college women would find it much more annoying if a low status man continually asked for dates when he was turned down than if a high status man would do it.

Evolutionary psychology is quite a new area of research still. While, as said, if find the overall picture in the book quite convincing I expect more research and studies will make some of the explanations and data in the book obsolete. But I expect the general direction this book points to will be confirmed. And it is quite an enjoyable read (even though it certainly goes into some of the darker sides of human psychology and behavior). show less

I read this book at a fairly busy point in life, so it took me about two months to get through it. I was glad to finish the last page, but at the same time I wanted to know more. I know that by taking so long to read the book, I've forgotten some of the stuff that happened earlier, but I DO know that I really enjoyed it. It's that weird part of me that enjoys studying human sexuality.

This book is considerably less complicated than Buss and Malamuths SEX, POWER, CONFLICT. Even though Buss is an apparent fountain of knowledge about this topic, he is able to pare it down into language that even a person unschooled in the realm of psychology can understand. He's clear and straightforward, and does not seem to have any huge biases--his show more major beef seems to be with those who hold with the feminist perspective, which is, I believe, totally understandable. All in all, a good read. show less

Seems about right. Evolution of desire hasn't stopped but evolution is not as fast as the culture change - hence the strange mismatch of actual strategies versus our claimed ethical stances.