References

Barash, D. P., Barash, N. R. (2005). Madame Bovary's ovaries: ADarwinian look at literature. New York: Delta.

Carroll, J. (2004). Literary Darwinism: Evolution, human nature, andliterature. New York: Routledge.

Cosmides, L., Tooby, J. (2000a). Consider the source: The evolution ofadaptations for decoupling and metarepresentation. In: D. Sperber (Ed.),Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 53–115).New York: Oxford University Press.

Cosmides, L., Tooby, J. (2000b). Evolutionary psychology and theemotions. In: M. Lewis, J. M. HavilandQJones (Eds.), Handbook ofemotions (pp. 91–115). New York: Guilford.

Gintis, H. (2000). Strong reciprocity and human sociality. Journal ofTheoretical Biology, 206, 169−179.

Gottschall, J. (2005). Quantitative literary study: A modest manifesto andtesting the hypotheses of feminist fairy tale studies. In: J. Gottshall, D. S.Wilson (Eds.), The literary animal (pp. 199–224). Chicago: North-western University Press.

Gottschall, J., Martin, J., Rea, J., Quish, H. (2004). Sex differences in matechoice criteria are reflected in folk tales from around the world andin historical European literature. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25,102−112.

Humphrey, N. (1983). Consciousness regained. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Oatley, K. (1999). Why fiction may be twice as true as fact: Fiction ascognitive and emotional simulation. Review of General Psychology, 3,101−117.

Oatley, K., Mar, R. A. (2005). Evolutionary pre-adaptation and the idea ofcharacter in fiction. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology,3, 181−196.

Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York: W. W. Norton.Scalise Sugiyama, M. (1996). On the origins of narrative: Storyteller bias as

a fitness-enhancing strategy. Human Nature, 7, 403−425.Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2001a). Food, foragers, and folklore: The role of

narrative in human subsistence. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22,221−240.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2001b). Narrative theory and function: Whyevolution matters. Philosophy and Literature, 25, 233−254.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2003). Cultural variation is part of human nature:Literary universals, context-sensitivity, and ‘Shakespeare in the Bush.Human Nature, 14, 383−396.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2004). Predation, narration, and adaptation: ‘LittleRed Riding Hood’ revisited. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 5,108−127.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2005). Reverse-engineering narrative: Evidence ofspecial design. In: J. Gottshall, D. S. Wilson (Eds.), The literary animal(pp. 177–196). Chicago: Northwestern University Press.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2006). Lions and tigers and bears: Predators as afolklore universal. In: H. Friedrich, F. Jannidis, U. Klein, K. Mellman, S.Metzger, M. Willems (Eds.), Anthropology and social history:Heuristics in the study of literature (pp. 319–331). Paderborn: Mentis.

Scalise Sugiyama, M. (2008). Narrative as social mapping — case study:The trickster genre and the free rider problem. Ometeca, 12, 24−42.

Storey, R. (1996). Mimesis and the human animal: On the biogeneticfoundations of literary representation. Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press.

Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotionaladaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. Ethology andSociobiology, 11, 375−424.

Tooby, J., Cosmides, L. (2001). Does beauty build adapted minds? Towardan evolutionary theory of aesthetics, fiction and the arts. SubStance,94/95, 6−27.

Tooby, J., DeVore, I. (1987). The reconstruction of hominid behavioralevolution through strategic modeling. In: W. Kinzey (Ed.), Theevolution of human behavior: Primate models (pp. 183–237). Albany:SUNY Press.

Mismatch: Why Our World No Longer Fits Our Bodiesby Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson.Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-280683-3, $39.95,304 pages.

Do you conceive of yourself as a Pleistocene hunter–gatherer living in an alien environment? If so, you might beintrigued by a book entitled Mismatch: Why Our World NoLonger FitsOur Bodies by Peter Gluckman andMarkHanson.

I was intrigued, and I hoped for a scholarly update onwhat we have all learned on mismatch from John Bowlby, EdWilson, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Bill Irons, and others.If you have such an expectation, then Mismatch willdisappoint. Mismatch is not a scholarly update on the topicof forager brains operating in supermarkets, banks, andbedrooms. Rather, it is an undisciplined work that coversmany topics with uneven levels of scholarship.

Despite these flaws, the book has some merit. First, it isnot poorly written. Steve Pinker need not fear that he willhave to survive on his academic salary, but in places Mis-match passed the subway test of making my commute seemtoo short. For example, I appreciated the title of “Is theMother a Reliable Witness?” for a section on the inferences afetus makes about future resource availability based onmaternal signals sent in utero.1

Second, there are interesting facts. Those who want toread as much as possible on evolutionary topics, and arecapable of straining the krill, may find some novel data. Forexample, cretinism is a condition of severely stunted mentaland physical growth caused by hypothyroidism. Somepopulations in the Himalayas had cretinism rates of over10% because of iodine-deficient hypothyroidism. This is apoignant example of the cost of mismatch. (Iodine injectionsprevent cretinism in this population as readily as limesprevent scurvy.2)

Some of the other interesting facts in Mismatch relate tophenotypic plasticity as ameans to compete in awider range ofenvironments. High population density among some amphi-bians, for example, increases the prevalence of carnivorousmorphs (Newman, 1992).3 These examples tend not to benovel (the amphibian review paper that is cited was publishedin 1992), but they are fun, and they relate to mismatch.

Third, there are some tantalizing tidbits from recent studies.For example, monozygotic twins show increasingly divergentDNA methylation patterns as a function of age and time spentapart (Fraga et al., 2005). This provides molecular support forthe possibility of an epigenetic role in phenotypic plasticity.

Fourth, and finally, Mismatch has a chapter “Coming ofAge” with a lengthy discussion on the divergence betweenwomen's age of reproductive competence and actualreproduction. Women increasingly tend to menstruate early

1 P. 169.2 Pp. 2–3.3 Pp. 36–37.

372 Book Reviews / Evolution and Human Behavior 29 (2008) 370–373

and marry late. In what appears to be an understudied aspectof mismatch, women in modern industrialized societiesendure long periods of conflict between hormonal drives andparental pleas. In some substantial demographic groups, thisprereproductive phase of adult life now approaches one-quarter of lifespan.

While Mismatch is not without strengths, it has profoundshortcomings. Perhaps most importantly the authors do notappear to be well-situated in the relevant literature onevolution. This manifests in persistent use of language thatsuggests evolution produces optimal design. The authorsask, “What must an animal do to have optimal fitness?”4 andstate, “A good match would imply an optimal strategy forour life course.”5 There are also hints of group selection in,for example, stating that development works, in part, “toensure that the organism is born conforming to the fittestdesign for the species.”6

Beyond language, the text is not well-grounded in theprimary literature. For example, the intellectual foundationfor mismatch is introduced as follows, “One particularconcept, that of the ‘environment of evolutionary adapted-ness’, was first introduced by the psychoanalyst JohnBowlby and further defined by two evolutionary psycholo-gists, Cosmides and Tooby, to define the selective environ-ment on of the Paleolithic.”7

One might expect the highest standards in the sectionmost relevant to the book's core. However, I find threeshortcomings in this section. First, John Bowlby is givenappropriate credit, but his original work is not cited (Bowlby,1969). Second, there is no mention of one of the mostsignificant papers on the concept of an environment ofevolutionary adaptedness (EEA), namely, Bill Irons' “adap-tively relevant environment” notion (Irons, 1998).

Third, the paragraph labels the work of Bowlby,Cosmides, and Tooby as “overstated” and “oversimplified”stating that “Not all aspects of human behavior can beinterpreted purely as a response to a Stone Ageenvironment.”8 This critique is diametrically at odds withboth the form (not simple) and the content (nuanced) of thework critiqued. For example, in their seminal work, Toobyand Cosmides (1992, p. 83) write, “Every feature of everyphenotype is fully and equally codetermined by theinteractions of the organism's genes (embedded in its initialpackage of zygotic cellular machinery) and its ontogeneticenvironments—meaning everything else that impinges on it.”

These failures of scholarship on the core idea of the bookare troubling. Furthermore, the lack of appropriate groundingin the literature is persistent. On the central topic of therelationship between mismatch and disease, the authorsaddress mental health. They make the strong claim that,

“the idea that disease could occur in human populations aspart of their normal biology and be induced by theirinteraction with their seemingly normal environment isrelatively new.”9 In 1984, EO Wilson's Biophilia made acentral point of relating mental health to mismatch statingthat, although people in human-made environments may self-report being happy, they would be stripped of “a wide array ofexperiences that the human brain is peculiarly equipped toreceive” (Wilson 1984).

Beyond these issues of language and literature, the bookincludes unfocused and speculative sections on a widevariety of topics including the evolution of senescence, theextinction of Neanderthals, the origins of large brains and theevolutionary roots of menopause. These discussions do notappear to be novel, nor one fears will they be more connectedto the primary literature than the discussion of the EEA.

In summary, Mismatch is an uneven and overreachingbook with serious gaps in scholarship. Less sophisticatedreaders may enjoy its prose, but could probably satisfy theirtaste for evolutionary thinking in other books. The notion ofmismatch itself seems of central importance to industrializedlife, and it is disappointing that a book with the title Mis-match does not do a better job on the topic.

Those hungry for more information on mismatch may findsatisfaction in rereading Bowlby's classic work. Here's asample to entice from Chapter 4, “Man's Environment ofEvolutionary Adaptedness.” The EEA is “the one that maninhabited for two million years until change of the past fewthousand years led to the extraordinary variety of habitats heoccupies today…Just as Darwin found it impossible tounderstand the structure of an orchid flower until he knewwhat insects flourished and visited it in its environment ofadaptedness…we need to turn to anthropological studies ofhuman communities… and field studies of the higher primates.”

Terence C. BurnhamHarvard University

Cambridge, MA, USA

References

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss. Attachment, Volume I. New York:Basic Books.

Fraga, M. F., et al. (2005). Epigenetic differences arise during the lifetime ofmonozygotic twins. PNAS, 102, 10604−10609.

Irons, W. (1998). Adaptively relevant environments versus the environmentof evolutionary adaptedness. Evolutionary Anthropology, 6, 194−204.

Newman, R. A. (1992). Adaptive plasticity in amphibian metamorphosis.BioScience, 42, 671−678.

Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The Psychological foundations of culture.In: J. H. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby, (Eds.), The Adapted Mind:Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. New York:Oxford University Press.

Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UniversityPress.

4 P. 18.5 P. 195.6 P. 24.7 P. 103.8 P. 103. 9 P. 202.

373Book Reviews / Evolution and Human Behavior 29 (2008) 370–373