Steven M. Platek

At different times while reading this I thought about rating it a five and then later a three, finally opting on a four. This volume is very interesting in that it demonstrates the emergence and growth of a new field from the marriage of three disciplines: evolutionary biology, cognitive science and neurobiology. Its interesting to see how new and old methods are being combined to ask (and in some cases even answer) complex and intriguing questions.

That being said, there are a few solid misses included in here which I think the editor should have thought harder about before including. One paper concerning the measurement of IQ and the basis for further conclusions was, I thought, highly dubious. Another on the evolution and neurobiology of deception was, in my opinion, a disaster. At times some of these papers feel like psychologists or scientists from differing disciplines incorporating techniques that they don't fully understand some of the methodological pitfalls. I couldn't understand at all how one researcher was tieing his fMRI data and case studies to his conclusions, and it left me walking away very dissapointed (with that paper, not the book at large which was mostly good).

Still, this book presents an interesting range of ideas and questions along with the varying techniques researchers are using to tackle them. Definitely worth reading for the perspective on modern research.… (mere)