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Nessa Carey (2012). The epigenetic evolution: How modern biology is rewriting our understanding of genetics, disease, and inheritance. New York: Columbia University Press.
Nessa Carey is an epigenetic researcher who describes in clear terms the emerging field of epigenetics and its implications. This is an excellent introduction to this fast-developing field that may change the way we understand genetic influences on disease, development, and inheritance. Carey explains the role of epigenetics in normal prenatal development, inheritance, and disease; why chromosomes from two different sexes are needed to produce a viable offspring; how genes from one’s mother and one’s father sometimes compete within the developing organism; and how early experience can alter the course of later development, among other topics.
Charles Darwin (1859; reprinted 1963). The origin of species. New York: Washington Square Press.
Darwin was an engaging writer as well as a brilliant thinker. Why not read at least part of this book, which revolutionized the intellectual world? The most relevant chapter for psychologists is Chapter 8, Instinct, which includes Darwin’s research on hive building in bees and many other insights about the behavior of wild and domesticated animals.
David Sloan Wilson (2007). Evolution for everyone: How Darwin’s theory can change the way we think about our lives. New York: Delecorte Press.
Wilson is a brilliant biologist, a broad-ranging philosopher, a great storyteller, and a self-described optimist. His goal in this book is to show how all of us—as individuals and collectively—can benefit by understanding evolutionary theory and applying it in our everyday thinking. Wilson shows how evolutionary theory sheds insight on topics ranging from species of beetles to Abraham Lincoln to organized religions. A theme throughout is that evolution involves a constant balance between the characteristics we know as “good” and those we know as “evil.” Understanding evolution can be a first step toward fostering the former and defeating the later.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (2006). The old way: A story of the first people. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
During most of our evolutionary history, our species lived as hunter-gatherers. Therefore, many of our natural tendencies make most sense in the context of the hunter-gatherers’ ways of living. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was among the pioneers to study a hunter-gatherer group in Africa, at a time when that group had almost no previous exposure to modern ways. In this fascinating book, Thomas describes the ingenious means by which these playful and democratic people kept peace among themselves and pursued their survival needs.
Jane Goodall (1988). In the shadow of man (rev. ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Goodall’s study of wild chimpanzees, which began in 1960, ranks as one of the most courageous and scientifically valuable studies of animal behavior ever undertaken. This book, first published in 1971, is an exciting account of her early struggle to locate and study the animals and of her early findings about their behavior. For a more complete and scientific account of her research, we recommend Goodall’s 1986 book, The Chimpanzees of Gombe.
Frans de Waal (2005). Our inner ape. New York: Riverhead Books.
De Waal is a leading expert on both chimpanzees and bonobos. Here, in delightfully folksy and often humorous prose, he contrasts the two species and discusses the many ways that we resemble both of these close cousins of ours. De Waal helps us see, in chimps and bonobos, our own compassion, kindness, sexiness, meanness, violence, and political intrigue. Another excellent, quite different book by De Waal is Bonobo: The forgotten ape (1997, University of California Press), which includes dozens of full-color, full-page photographs of these apes, famous for their make-love-not-war style of life.
Dale Goldhaber (2012). The nature-nurture debates: Bridging the gap. New York: Cambridge University Press.
This is a scholarly yet highly readable account of the perennial nature-nurture debate. Goldhaber concludes, rightly we believe, that it is only through an integration of modern evolutionary and developmental theories that we will attain a true understanding of human nature. Goldhaber examines up-to-date research and theory from diverse disciplines, and his synthesis of these literatures provides valuable insights for all students of psychology, from college freshmen to their staid professors.
Susan M. Schneider (2012). The science of consequences: How they affect genes, change the brain, and impact our world. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
Schneider takes complex and often difficult scientific concepts and presents them in an everyday-manner. This often humorous book connects several levels of analysis from the long-standing science of biology and genetics to current investigations in learning psychology. Schneider explores how consequences change who we are as a species, how we got to be this way, and how individual experience changes what we do. In the traditions of Charles Darwin and B. F. Skinner, Schneider shows just how powerful consequences can be.