It is particularly ironic that the critics have hurled all the
conventional accusations at Miller, since his version of evolutionary
psychology is so different from that of Steven Pinker and other key
thinkers in the field. His theory, eloquently advanced in The Mating
Mind (2000), that the evolution of human intelligence was shaped more
by sexual selection than by natural selection, sets him apart from
the mainstream. In this book Miller advances an equally original
thesis - that our purchases are driven by the desire to display
personality traits that have been shaped by our evolutionary history.
When viewed through this lens, puzzling aspects of consumer behaviour
suddenly make sense.
Take the value-density conundrum, for example. The value-density of a
product is its retail price divided by its weight. Miller calculates
the value-density of a variety of products and comes up with some
interesting questions. Why, for example, does an implanted human egg
cost 72 quadrillion times more per gram than tap water, even though
the egg is constituted mostly of water? The answer is that the egg is
the ultimate currency of Darwinian success, for which there is little
supply and much demand. Miller's genius here lies not in the answers
he provides but in the questions he asks. Once the questions are
posed the answers are rather obvious, but before reading Miller's
book, it had never even occurred to me to ask such questions.
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/08/spent-geoffrey-miller-book-review>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/08/is-egg-is-ultimate-currency-of.htm>monochrom
at 8/10/2009 03:45:00 PM
