Publisher Description
"The Mean Genes message is optimistic . . . a self-help book for the merely average human being." (The Washington Post Book World) "An unusual cross between a social Darwinist monograph and a self-help manual." (The New Yorker) Why do we want-and do-so many things that are bad for us? In Mean Genes Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan argue that we need to stop looking to Sigmund Freud for answers and start looking to Charles Darwin. Mean Genes reveals that our struggles for self-improvement are, in fact, battles against our own genes-genes that helped our distant ancestors flourish, but are selfish and out of place in the modern world. Using this evolutionary lens, Mean Genes brilliantly examines the issues that most affect our lives-body image, money, addiction, violence, and relationships, friendship, love, and fidelity-and offers steps to help us lead more satisfying lives.
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“The Mean Genes message is optimistic…A self-help book for the
merely average human being.”
—
Washington Post Book World
About the Authors
Terence Burnham, PhD, is a visiting
scholar at the Harvard Business School. He received his PhD in business
economics from Harvard in 1997 and was an economics professor at Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government from 1997 until he joined the HBS faculty. He has
worked on Wall Street and cofounded Progenis, a publicly-traded biotechnology
firm with promising treatments for cancer and AIDS. Terry has studied wild
chimpanzees in Africa and served with distinction as a tank driver in the US
Marine Corps.
Jay Phelan, PhD, is a biology
professor at UCLA. He received his PhD in biology from Harvard in 1995 and
master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Yale and UCLA. His main area of research
is evolutionary genetics and aging. He has been featured on BBC and Talk of the Nation as well as in
magazines and newspapers. An accomplished educator, Jay has received accolades
and numerous awards for his teaching.