John Tooby (born 1952) is an American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

, who, together with

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

wife Leda Cosmides, helped pioneer the field of

evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolv ...

Biography

Tooby received his PhD in

Biological Anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1989 and is currently Professor of Anthropology at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

. In 1992, together with Cosmides and Jerome Barkow, Tooby edited '' The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture''. Tooby and Cosmides also co-founded and co-direct the UCSB

Center for Evolutionary Psychology Center for Evolutionary Psychology (CEP) is a research center co-founded and co-directed by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides and is affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara. The center is meant to provide research support and compr ...

. Cosmides and Tooby are the joint recipient of the 2020

Jean Nicod Prize The Jean Nicod Prize is awarded annually in Paris to a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The lectures are organized by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique as part of its effort to promote int ...

Selected publications

Books

* Barkow, J., Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J., (Eds.) (1992). ''The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture''. New York: Oxford University Press. * Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (in press). ''Evolutionary psychology: Foundational papers''. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. * Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (in press). ''Universal Minds: Explaining the new science of evolutionary psychology''(Darwinism Today Series). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Papers

* Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1981). Cytoplasmic inheritance and intragenomic conflict. ''Journal of Theoretical Biology'', 89, 83-129. * Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1987). From evolution to behavior: Evolutionary psychology as the missing link. In J. Dupre (Ed.), ''The latest on the best: Essays on evolution and optimality''. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. * Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1990). The past explains the present: Emotional adaptations and the structure of ancestral environments. ''Ethology and Sociobiology'', 11, 375-424. * Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1992) Cognitive adaptations for social exchange. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), ''The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture.'' New York: Oxford University Press. * Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (1994). Beyond intuition and instinct blindness: Toward an evolutionarily rigorous cognitive science. ''Cognition, 50''(1-3), 41-77. * Cosmides, L. & Tooby, J. (2003). Evolutionary psychology: Theoretical Foundations. In ''Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science''. London: Macmillan. * Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (2005). Evolutionary psychology: Conceptual foundations. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), ''Evolutionary Psychology Handbook''. New York: Wiley. *

References

External links

;Websites
John Tooby's Website

Center for Evolutionary Psychology
;Articles and media
"Them"
- article on Cosmides, Tooby and Kurzban's research into the origin of racism, ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

'', December 13, 2001.
"Has Natural Selection Shaped How Humans Reason?"
audio of a lecture at the

Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) is a research institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara. KITP is one of the most renowned institutes for theoretical physics in the world, and brings theorists in physics and rela ...

, May 20, 1998 (with Cosmides).
"Coalitional Psychology and Social Categorization"
audio or video of a lecture at the