Review: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous by Joseph Henrich
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting premise and refreshing point of view. How do studies of economics, anthropology, psychology, culture, etc. differ if we consider "Western" points of view to be an extreme, not shared by most of the world? This book (quite convincingly) argues that this is the case. I don't know enough to confirm or refute his main thesis, but I did find many of his experiments very interesting, especially stuff like the Ultimatum game with indigenous tribes in South America. I find the whole "WEIRD" nomenclature a bit click-baity, but there you go. 

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Review: Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking

Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking by Cecilia Heyes
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

To be frank, I don't think I'm smart enough to understand this book. As least with regards to its subject matter. I probably should have given up after a chapter or two. I only stuck with it because what little I did understand was interesting, and I was curious about the chapter on language (which also confused me).

Keeping all that in mind, this is probably a moronic comment, but it seemed to me that many of her conclusions could have been reached by just noting the differences between various cultures, which would show proof of cultural evolutionary psychology as opposed to purely biological evolution. Then, taking that as a starting point, we could analyze whether the commonalities evolved from a fixed proto-human culture or not.

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