We show that the benchmark Bayesian framework that Rahnev & Denison (R&D) used to assess optimality is actually suboptimal under realistic assumptions about how noise corrupts decision making in biological brains. This model is therefore invalid qua normative standard. We advise against generally forsaking optimality and argue that a biologically constrained definition of optimality could serve as an important driver for scientific progress.

Geary's project faces the severe methodological difficulty of tracing the biological effects of gender on mathematical ability in a system that is massively open. Two methodological stratagems he uses are considered. The first is that pancultural sex differences are biological in nature, which is dubious in the domain of mathematics, since it is completely culture-bound. The second is that sociosexual differences are partly caused by biosexual differences, which renders his thesis unfalsifiable and empirically empty.

The key questions arising from Mealey's analysis are: Do environmental factors such as early maternal rejection also contribute to the emotional deficits observed in psychopaths? Are there psychophysiological protective factors for antisocial behavior that have clinical implications? Does a disinhibited temperament and low arousal predispose to primary psychopathy? Would primary or secondary psychopaths be most characterized by prefrontal dysfunction?

The theory of ritualized behavior should offer insight about cultural rituals. Considering ritualized behaviors' scripted actions and both the frequent absence of anxiety and the routinization of many cultural rituals, questions remain about how much and what precisely gets explained. Among religious rituals, ritualized behaviors arise more strikingly in special agent rituals, but that might be because they usually include novices.

Mirror neurons may play a role in representing not only signs but also their meaning. Because actions are the only aspect of behavior that are inter-individually accessible, interpreting meanings in terms of actions might explain how meanings can be shared. Behavioral evidence and artificial life simulations suggest that seeing objects or processing words referring to objects automatically activates motor actions.

The groundbreaking, viewpoint theory of Merker et al. explains several properties of the conscious field, including why the observer cannot directly apprehend itself. We propose that viewpoint theory might also provide a progressive, constitutive marker of consciousness and shed light on why most of the contents of consciousness are encapsulated.

Evolutionary theory and methods are central to understanding the design of organisms, including their brains. This book does much to demonstrate the value of evolutionary neuroscience. Further work is needed to clarify the ways that neural systems evolved in general (specifically, the interaction between mosaic and coordinated evolution of brain components), and phylogenetic methods should be given a more prominent role in the analysis of comparative data.

Michael Tomasello explains the human sense of obligation by the role it plays in negotiating practices of acting jointly and the commitments they underwrite. He draws in his work on two models of joint action, one from Michael Bratman, the other from Margaret Gilbert. But Bratman's makes the explanation too difficult to succeed, and Gilbert's makes it too easy.

Evidence Van de Vliert draws on is more consistent with the idea that settlement in the frontier encourages independent mentality and individualistic social institutions. This cultural system can sometimes flourish, generating both wealth and power, but clearly not always. In our view, wealth is, for the most part, a measure of success of any given cultural group, and climate is important to the extent that it plays a role in creating rugged lands of frontier.

“Challenging the utility of polygenic scores for social science” is a compelling but limited critique. Phenotypic development is sensitive to both initial conditions and all subsequent states – from conception to senescence. Thus, gene-centric analyses are misleading (and often meaningless) because gene products are transformed, and their phenotypic ‘effects' combined and attenuated with successive propagations from molecular and cellular contexts to organismal and social environments.

Predictive processing models of psychopathologies are not explanatorily consistent with the present account of abstract thought. These models are based on latent variables probabilistically mapping the structure of the world. As such, they cannot be informed by representational ontology based on mental objects and states. What actually is the case is merely some terminological affinity between subjective and informational uncertainty.

I make three points. First, the i-frame and s-frame are not helpful frameworks for thinking about behavioral public policy. Second, the authors ignore the role of politics: Policies (and the s-frame) require laws and regulations. Third, the research on retirement savings, which is all about the system, undercuts their claims.

We discuss the discovery of technologies involving knotted netting, such as textiles, basketry, and cordage, in the Upper Paleolithic. This evidence, in our view, suggests a new way of connecting toolmaking and syntactic structure in human evolution, because these technologies already exhibit an “infinite use of finite means,” which we take to constitute the key transition to human cognition.

We extend Benenson et al.'s hypothesis from the individual level to the societal level. Because women have highly limited reproductive rates, societies have generally prioritized female survival and regarded males as expendable. We describe various lines of evidence that are consistent with this hypothesis, and we offer additional predictions about differential attitudes toward male versus female endangerment.

Cushman argues that the function of rationalization is to attribute mental representations to ourselves, thereby making these representations available for future planning. I argue that such attribution is often not necessary and sometimes maladaptive. I suggest a different explanation of rationalization: making representations available to other agents, to facilitate cooperation, transmission, and the ratchet effect that underlies cumulative cultural evolution.