Abstract

Evolutionary Psychology www.epjournal.net – 2008.6(1): 125-128 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Book Review A Better Metaphor A Review of Gad Saad, The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption. LEA/Psychology Press: Mahwah, N.J., 2007. US$110(hardback), US$33.90 (paperback). 339 pp. ISBN 978-0- 8058-5149-6 Joseph Henry Vogel, Department of Economics, PO Box 23345, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras, San Juan, P.R. 00931-3345, USA. Email: josephvogel@usa.net What is a good metaphor for the word “synthesis?” In classroom lectures, E.O. Wilson would invoke the image of a theoretical skeleton upon which one can hang the facts. For Wilson, the bones were the five agents of microevolution and the flesh, disparate empirical findings. Although vivid, the metaphor fails to capture the sociology of scientific discovery: calculated risk-taking with its own Darwinian process of winnowing hypotheses that fail to meet the accepted threshold of evidence. Wilson’s metaphor would not do justice to the feat achieved in The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption. The author, Gad Saad, has done more than just hang the facts of consumer behavior onto the skeleton of evolutionary psychology. He has given us a map of the literature where the curious reader is encouraged to probe the hinterlands. So, in answer to my own question, I would invoke the