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Book Reviews |
Mind, brain, law and culture
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Some foolish folks believe that history matters, that human societies and human behaviours have developed over thousands of years largely because of the elaboration of an increasing complex set of social, cultural and material phenomena that need to be examined on their own terms. The wiser among us, however, understand that we are only animals, and as such are ruled by our biology, just as ineluctably as the ant or the rhesus monkey, and that if we want to understand human action in general, or more specialized realms like the human institution of the law, it is to our biology that we must turn. More specifically, it is mostly our brains that matter, and therefore it is to the elucidation and illumination provided by evolutionary psychobiology and contemporary neuroscience that we need to look for answers. Science, HARD science, will uncover the secret wellsprings of all our actions, and we
University of California San Diego, CA, USA
E-mail: ascull@weber.ucsd.edu