Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious MindDeceit, lying, and falsehoods lie at the very heart of our cultural heritage. Even the founding myth of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Adam and Eve, revolves around a lie. We have been talking, writing and singing about deception ever since Eve told God, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Our seemingly insatiable appetite for stories of deception spans the extremes of culture from King Lear to Little Red Riding Hood, retaining a grip on our imaginations despite endless repetition. These tales of deception are so enthralling because they speak to something fundamental in the human condition. The ever-present possibility of deceit is a crucial dimension of all human relationships, even the most central: our relationships with our very own selves. |
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... animal behavior. In fact, even today there are people who have neither direct experience observing animals nor knowledge of the scientific literature who are prone to greet this sort of material with statements such as “Are you putting ...
... animals. 2 Before the pioneering work of the Harvard biologist Edmond O. Wilson, the study of human social behavior had been dominated by the dogma of cultural determinism. According to this view, which remains prevalent in. TheStone Age ...
... animals, and that our minds, no less than our bodies, are products of the forces of nature operating on a time frame of millions of years; human nature was forged from our ancestors' struggle to survive and reproduce. It is difficult to ...
... animals because of the advantages that dishonesty reaped for our ancestors, and which it continues to secure for us today. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me first survey the landscape of human deceit and leave the discussion of ...
... animal that has evolved a mind with the remarkable power to scientifically analyze its own nature, this same mind has been configured by the forces of natural selection to oppose and dismiss the outcome of this investigation.48 Perhaps ...
Contents
9 | |
29 | |
The Evolution of Machiavelli | 50 |
The Architecture of the Machiavellian Mind | 79 |
Social Poker | 104 |
Hot Gossip | 122 |
Machiavelli on the Couch | 148 |
Conspiratorial Whispers and Covert Operations | 168 |
Descartess Demon | 195 |
Index | 233 |
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Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind David Livingstone Smith No preview available - 2004 |