On the downside, Mean Genes follows the evolutionary psychological tradition of leaping straight to the biology without exploring alternative, nongenetic and nonadaptationist explanations of the behaviors under examination. One wonders, for instance, what the chapters on debt and obesity would have looked like had they been written in Japan, a land that, as the authors themselves note, is peopled by obsessive savers of sylphlike proportions. By making ourselves feel poor . . . we can fool our genes, at least a bit, into thinking there is less surplus to be consumed. To get thin, you should eat before you go grocery shopping, not buy fatty or sugary foods, have healthy stuff on hand for snacks and tie yourself to the mast by discarding or making unpalatable any yummies lying around. Not much you can do there beyond methadone, the nicotine patch and Antabuse.
Women are still from Venus and men from Mars.
There is no simple path to ensuring gender equality. The hope is, however, that by combining equal rights with a deeper understanding of human nature, we can all be happier.