Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Why We Love : The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love by Helen Fisher ISBN: 0-8050-6913-5 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: 04 February, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (15 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Attempting to Touch the Sky without Leaving the Ground
Comment: This sort of pseudo-science sold through the recitation of credentials does a disservice to the scientific community. The author attempts to explain a complex emotion through a simplistic analysis that can't even begin to confront the underlying intricacies involved in the human response known as love (notably the author pays little attention to many chemicals that are known to play a role in creating the feelings of love and infatuation- see oxytocin, phenylalinine, etc.). After reading this book I'm fascinated that the author has the nerve to draw actual conclusions from the limited data that is available, the real source of amusement in the book is watching Fisher attempt to explain love with only the most rudimentary forms of scientific data- it's like watching someone try to complete a jigsaw puzzle when they only have one piece. Some of Fisher's conclusions are the worst form of science - she clearly holds the world speed record in jumping from correlation to conclusion. At one point in the book Fisher concludes that we are conditioned for periods of serial monogamy, to bolster her conclusion she presents data indicating that divorce is most prevalent in the fourth year of marriage, when a couple has a single dependent child. I don't know about the other readers, but I'm sold- I'm sure there are no other plausible explanations for the statistical evidence presented by Fisher. I suppose in the end the worst thing that can be said about Fisher is that her she wanted to understand something that neither she or anyone else is capable of understanding at this point. There is nothing wrong with theorizing, scientific progress often comes in baby steps BUT science is based on a process whereby you attempt to disprove rather than to prove (Fisher's gear shifter seems to be locked in reverse). Unless Love turns out to be flat, Fisher's book is largely irrelevant.
Rating: 1
Summary: Why do we love books like this?
Comment: I found this book a disappointment. Dr. Fisher's earlier book, The Sex Contract, was a popular and accessible review of some important ideas about evolution and human behavior. They have been around for 20 years or more but hadn't reached a lay audience. Nothing wrong with popularizing science. It's a public service. Personally, I'd suggest Sara Hrdy's The Woman Who Never Evolved and Mother Nature as the books about evolution, sex, and bonding that will stand the test of time.
Unfortunately, Dr. Fisher's new book is less a service to science or the public than The Sex Contract. Indeed her books seem to me to be steadily sliding downward from popularization of science to mere popularization. Notwithstanding social scientists' current enthusiasm for brain research, we are still very early in the game. In most respects we don't know the right questions to ask or how to frame them. We rarely know what the answers are like, muchless the details or how they might be translated into practical applications.
Dr. Fisher presents a few facts about neurotransmitters as explaining far more than they reasonably can. There are the obligatory cautions and qualifications but they aren't allowed to get in the way of the story. A great deal of the most careful neuroscience research on bonding and parenting is on mice. Nice little brains, inexpensive to feed, and they are mammals. But their evolutionary solution to mating, having young, and parenting is dramatically different from ours. The adults don't form lasting bonds. They have an amazing number of offspring which require care for only a very brief time, and their young do not have lifelong bonds to the parents. As Dr. Fisher points out in her previous books, humans are dramatically different. We differ from rodents (and most other species) in our monogamous bonding, paternal investment in young, small number of offspring, their extrordinarily long immaturity, the duration of care we provide, and the duration of chidren's bonds to their parents.
It would be nice to know in detail how the chemistry of the mouse brain explains mouse behavior. It might help us ask the right questions about human brains and behavior. But it doesn't seem likely that the same mechanisms would account for such very different behavior in humans.
Read the book. Enjoy the story. It will give you the "feeling of knowing". Just don't take any pills, accept any mental health or marital advice, make any decisions about your romantic life, or do a term paper in biology or biopsychology without a trip to the library.
Rating: 2
Summary: How do I love thee...? With dopamine!
Comment: One must first congratulate Dr. Fisher for attempting to try to explain the machinations of human love and why we choose who we fall in love with. Universal questions, of course, and ones that scientists, poets, composers and dramatists have pondered for centuries. And Dr. Fisher does rise to the occasion, offering numerous and fascinating examples of love in the animal kingdom and how it developed into human love, romantic love and attachment over thousands of years. But certain questions remain unanswered. Dr. Fisher never addresses as to why certain animals, especially swans, mate for life and will literally pine away for a lost partner. Death is also not an issue in Dr. Fisher's book - something that definitely needed addressing - as we are furnished with pages on stalking, depression, suicide and even murder, but nothing on how a loved one responds after the death of its mate. Also requiring additional exploration and examination are the subjects of love, courtships and attachments form by gay and lesbian couples. Since, as Dr. Fisher explains, love developed as a necessary resource for mating and rearing children, than how do you explain why one man is attracted to another or why one woman woos another female? If two men or two women fall in love, it is most certainly not for procreative purposes. Such questions and the theories behind them would make absorbing reading. Sadly, Dr. Fisher only glosses over them in a curt, dismissive manner. Also, the book needed the skills of a good editor since Dr. Fisher is frequently redundant. Sentences are repeated almost verbatum from chapter to chapter, endlessly extolling Dr. Fisher's chemical cocktail that she believes is the human brain's recipe for romantic love. At times it almost seems as if the author is convinced that her readers cannot remember such details from page to page. All in all, Dr. Fisher has written an intriguing book, one that is readable and understandable, but, in the end, she raises far more questions then she answers. Perhaps, this was her intent?
 |
Title: Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray by Helen Fisher ISBN: 0449908976 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 03 January, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
 |
Title: The First Sex : The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are Changing the World by Helen Fisher ISBN: 0449912604 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: Survival of the Prettiest : The Science of Beauty by Nancy Etcoff ISBN: 0385479425 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 11 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating by David M. Buss ISBN: 046500802X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.50 |
 |
Title: Against Love : A Polemic by LAURA KIPNIS ISBN: 0375421890 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
