David Geary’s The Origin of Mind is a remarkable book. As suggested by its subtitle, it ambitiously addresses many of the oldest questions of science (and society)… These are profound questions to ask and (to varying degrees in different chapters) Geary’s work does an extraordinary job in answering them. American Journal of Psychiatry. [read review]

This is a work of massive and wide ranging scholarship … The Origin of Mind will be of fundamental importance for developing an evolutionary psychology that integrates all of contemporary behavioral science. Geary has made a ground-breaking contribution…   Human Ethology Bulletin [read review]

This book is a tour de force of current thinking and research in evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and decision science.  The Journal of Behavioral Finance [read review]

The Origin of Mind… is an impressive effort to make the case for a modern interdisciplinary study of brain and cognition that views cognitive processes as biological adaptations…  PsycCRITIQUES [read review]

This book develops several lines of thought about issues that are crucial to understanding human nature.  Readers will find this a rewarding experience.  MetaPsychology [read review]

"People often complain that modern psychology is a ragbag of phenomena without a theory to make sense of it all. The Origin of Mind makes that complaint obsolete, because in it David Geary has given us a coherent and satisfying framework for the sciences of mind. It combines an impressive coverage of the latest literature with hard thinking about how to synthesize topics like evolutionary psychology, neural plasticity, human development, and intelligence testing. The Origin of Mind is invaluable both as a reference work and as a road map for the sprawling territory covered by modern psychology and neighboring sciences."

—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

"Human nature is one of natural selection’s most stunning feats. David Geary takes seriously the implications of this for psychology—that it must be an evolutionary discipline. He sets out the theories with admirable clarity and deals systematically with the wealth of multidisciplinary evidence. This book pioneers a Darwinian synthesis, pulling together the disparate strands that currently crisscross the study of the human mind. Here lies the future of psychology. So now read on."

—Helena Cronin, Professor, The London School of Economic; author of The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today.

"In his book, The Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence, David Geary shows that he is indeed a scholar for the 21st century, providing a truly interdisciplinary synthesis on a topic of both great theoretical and practical importance: human intelligence. He presents clearly research from neuroscience, behavior genetics, and cognitive science (among others) and integrates them in an evolutionary framework to yield a comprehensive theory of the human mind. This book will be must-reading for anyone interested in intelligence, cognition, or human evolution."

—David F. Bjorklund, Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, F; coauthor of The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

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