Not a Walk in the Park
Last but definitely not least‚ ‘The Mating Mind’ by Geoffrey Miller has to be one of the most brilliant books I have read yet. In his book, Miller argues that our evolution as human beings was never the outcome of Darwin’s natural selection theory only. Borrowing his very well put New York analogy, just like Central Park divides up two of Manhattan's greatest treasure collections: The American
Museum of Natural history on the West Side, with its dinosaur skeletons and remains of ancient human beings, and the Metropolitan Museum of Arts on the East Side, with Edgar Degas’s sculpture of a young dancer and Van Gogh’s beautifully painted sceneries to name a few, the evolution of our ancestors from
primal…show more content… Another similar idea to this is Miller’s idea that learning more words would serve the purpose of attracting sexual partners. I agree that reading more and learning new fancy vocabulary makes one able to be clearer and more expressive, sharpening the thoughts, and expressing them in a better way; however, couldn’t it just be that expanding one’s vocabulary can be helpful in understanding literature better and has nothing to do with sex!? Using the example of Scheherazade was very well put, but aren’t stories supposed to have unexpected, unreal endings with a pinch of spice? Miller also brings the pursuit of science as “set of social institutions for channeling our sexually selected instincts for ideological display in certain directions according to strict rules”. This is very difficult to believe; that science progressed over the centuries and people pursued Masters, PhDs, and did research in topics they have a lot of interest in only because deep down in their minds they are trying to attract a partner and that deep interest has nothing to do with it… This is also a very brave statement coming from the author when he, himself, is a scientist who is (according to