The Myth of Human Nature - A New History of Us

In the ground-breaking The Myth of Human Nature Dr Heidi Colleran, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology, looks at cultures all over the world and throughout history that live according to different social facts of life than ours in the West - and not simply by the brute facts of biology.

Babies look like their fathers, we’re told, to assure anxious dads of their paternity. A dose of post-partum anxiety, it's said, helps mothers keep their children safe. And, apparently, women invest more in reproduction than men because eggs are more expensive to produce than sperm. In other words, behaviour is universally driven by genetic concerns. None of this is true.

By exploring other cultures we quickly discover that the imperatives of genetics are not the best way to understand human beings. Fatherhood is more than a paranoia about genetic legacy. Women suffer epidemic levels of post-partum depression in the West because they’re isolated in cities. There is no ‘natural’ way to organize a family. Age doesn’t have to be chronological. Fathers can be female. Parenthood can be collective. The nuclear family is an invention. And Mother Nature doesn't exist.

If, as Colleran suggests, we accept that the West is not the master narrative of family-making and that genetics is not the master cause of our behaviour, then our own social structures might look very different in the future. And that's exciting.