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SEXUAL SELECTION AND THE MIND
A Talk with Geoffrey Miller [6.26.98]

Introduction by
John Brockman

Geoffrey Miller is known for his research which focuses on evolutionary psychology and sexual selection. In this regard, his work is in the tradition of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, and Steven Pinker. In support of his views on sexual selection, his published academic papers, conference talks, and colloquia, range across the areas of visual perception, cognition, learning, robotics, neural networks, genetic algorithms, human mate choice, evolutionary game theory, and the origins of language, music, culture, intelligence, ideology, and consciousness.

Miller believes that our minds evolved not as survival machines, but as courtship machines."Evolution is driven not just by natural selection for survival, but by an equally important process that Darwin called sexual selection through mate choice.," he has noted. He proposes that the human mind's most impressive, baffling abilities are courtship tools, evolved to attract and entertain sexual partners. By switching from a survival-centered view of evolution to a courtship-centered view, he attempts to show how we can understand the mysteries of mind.

-JB

The Talk...

GEOFFREY MILLER is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution, University College London. He is a widely respected evolutionary psychologist, whose work (research focusing on evolutionary psychology and sexual selection) is in the tradition of scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker. He is the author of The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped Human Nature.