Book cover for Sex at Dawn

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Author:

Rating: ★★★★★


Language: en-US

Genre: Sexual Behavior

Themes: Sexuality, Monogamy

Format: eBook

Finished: November 27, 2023

ISBN: 9780061707803

Publisher: Harper

Published: 2010

Edition: First

Pages: 400

About The Book

A controversial, idea-driven book that challenges everything you know about sex, marriage, family, and society.

My Thoughts

While an interesting read this has been widely panned by those whose research it purports to report on. As is often true with science-based popular works, much was missed and left out, and the tone is, to a scientific mind, flippant. This volume however, has a deeper conflict hiding under the racy bits.

It pokes a very sharp stick at evolutionary psychology, which can only be a good thing. Many of the criticisms of the book can be summarized as “nuh uh, you’re just horny”, which is far worse science than the critic claims the authors are guilty of. For a science movement mired in controversy over genetic determinism, a refusal to engage with ethical concerns, including that of being the pet science of authoritarians and reactionaries, contradictions inherent in their own models, creating false dichotomies about standard models, and a generally reductionist point of view that is not supported by data. The arbitrary, untestable conclusions of evolutionary psychology is not a hill I personally would stand on to criticism someone else of untestable hypotheses.

I rate it highly simply because it uses the tools of evolutionary psychology to draw opposite conclusions than their standard model, and in the process, enrages them in a way they seem at a complete loss to articulate.

← Back to book notes