Life History Evolution: A Biological Meta-Theory for the Social Sciences

The social sciences share a mission to shed light on human nature and society. However, there is no widely accepted meta-theory; no foundation from which variables can be linked, causally sequenced, or ultimately explained. This book advances “life history evolution” as the missing meta-theory for the social sciences. Originally a biological theory for the variation between species, research on life history evolution now encompasses psychological and sociological variation within the human species that has long been the stock and trade of social scientific study. The eighteen chapters of this book review six disciplines, eighteen authors, and eighty-two volumes published between 1734 and 2015―re-reading the texts in the light of life history evolution. 

Steven C. Hertler is a licensed examining psychologist and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the College of Saint Elizabeth, USA. 

Aurelio José Figueredo is Professor of Psychology, Family Studies and Human Development, and serves as Director of the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory within the Graduate Program in Cognition and Neural Systems at the University of Arizona, USA.

Mateo Peñaherrera-Aguirre is a PhD student in the Cognitive and Neural Systems Program, and a researcher in the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory at the University of Arizona, USA.

Heitor B. F. Fernandes is a PhD student at the University of Arizona, USA, where he functions as part of the Anxiety Research Group, and the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Lab.

Michael A. Woodley of Menie is Fellow with the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.