Mean Genes, by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

Mean Genes

By Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

Narrated by Pat Woodruff

What the Critics Say

"Mean Genes is a surprisingly fun read, filled with amazing data that could keep any reader talking through many cocktail parties…" - Boston Globe

Publisher's Summary
Why do we want - and do - so many things that are bad for us? We vow to lose those extra five pounds, put money in the bank, and mend neglected relationships, but our attempts often end in failure. Our toughest battles, it seems, are with ourselves. To understand this fundamental aspect of human nature, Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan argue, we need to stop looking to Sigmund Freud - and start looking to Charles Darwin.

Short, sassy, and bold Mean Genes reveals that our struggles for self-improvement are, in fact, battles against our own genes - genes that helped our distant ancestors flourish, but are selfish and out of place in the modern world.

Using this evolutionary lens, Mean Genes brilliantly examines the issues that most affect our lives: body image, money, addiction, violence, and the endless search for friendship, love, and fidelity. But Burnham and Phelan don't simply describe the connections between genes and behavior. They use this knowledge to offer steps for improving the quality of our lives.

Why do we love fast food? Why is the road to romance so rocky? Must happiness always be elusive? What drives us into debt? An intrepid investigation into the biological nature of temptation and the struggle for control, Mean Genes answers these and other fundamental questions about human behavior, while giving us an edge to lead satisfying lives.

Beer.com says "It's not some corny self-help book either. It doesn't preach. In fact, it doesn't care if you continue to abuse yourself beyond recognition. It just attempts to explain why you bought that car you can't afford, ate that box of donuts you don't need and why, lordy lord, you continue to drink that cheap, generic beer when your bladder and liver are begging for an elevated variety."


Terry Burnham, Ph.D., is a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard in 1997, and was an economics professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government from 1997 until he joined the HBS faculty. He has worked on Wall Street and co-founded Progenics, a publicly traded biotechnology firm with promising treatments for cancer and AIDS. Terry has studied wild chimpanzees in Africa, and served with distinction as a tank driver in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Jay Phelan, Ph.D., is a biology professor at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from Harvard in 1995, and master's and bachelor's degrees from Yale and UCLA. His main area of research is evolutionary genetics and aging. He has been featured on BBC and Talk of the Nation, as well as in magazines and newspapers. An accomplished educator, Jay has received accolades and numerous awards for his teaching.



©2000 by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan



(P) 2000 Random House, Inc.

Available at www.audible.com