Back to required reading

The founding work in the field is E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology. The sociobiological study group is Gould and Lewontin plus others. The Barash piece is a chapter from his 1979 book on sociobiology. Lloyd's piece on the female orgasm (later developed into an entire book) isn't a direct attack on sociobiology generally, but it is related and is just a great read.

In order to understand the nature nurture debates, it is important to understand at least the simple details about heritability analysis like ANOVA methods and the philosophy behind them. The Downes piece is an intro. Lewontin is pessimistic that there can be any meaningful sense made out of causally dividing up the inputs of genes and the environment on traits. Sober is a bit more optimistic. In the 1970s there was a major debate about the role of race and heritability in IQ. It has continued but at a less constant pace. In 1994 The Bell Curve was published and the Block piece is a response to that. Sesardic is a new piece that argues against that IQ is heritable and race is a relevant factor. Pinker is a general, popular piece about nature vs. nurture.

Thornhill and Palmer's The Natural History of Rape is one of the most infamous examples of evolutionary psychology around. Lloyd's piece is a review of this book and the Vickers and Kitcher piece is about evolutionary psychology generally, but heavily features Thornhill and Palmer. Jesse Bering is a writer for Slate whose columns regularly feature evolutionary psychology.