Geoffrey F. Miller
b. 1965 · American evolutionary psychologist
Geoffrey Franklin Miller (born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1965) is an American evolutionary psychologist and associate professor at the University of New Mexico. He is best known for his work on sexual selection in human evolution, an approach that extends Darwin's ideas beyond natural selection and has sparked considerable debate.
He graduated from Columbia University in 1987 and earned his doctorate in cognitive psychology at Stanford in 1993. After research posts in Sussex, Nottingham, Munich and London, he has worked at New Mexico since 2001. His best-known book, The Mating Mind (2000), argues that traits such as art, morality, language and creativity spread because both sexes choose partners based on signals of intelligence and heritable fitness. To explain this, he draws on the idea that sexual selection operates alongside natural selection. In Spent (2009) he applies the same framework to consumerism, which he sees as exploiting our instinct to display status.
His influence is felt mainly in evolutionary psychology and in public debate about consumption, although his claims have drawn criticism. In 2008 he won the Ig Nobel Prize in Economics for a study of lap dancers, and in 2013 his university formally censured him over a controversial tweet about obesity.
Key ideas
- Sexual selection: mate choice may have shaped human traits such as art and language, alongside natural selection.
- Fitness signalling: traits persist because they advertise intelligence, creativity and heritable quality to potential partners.
- Mutual mate choice: both men and women select partners, so sexual selection works on both sexes rather than only one.
- Consumption as display: consumerism exploits the human drive to show status, and marketing channels it toward products rather than personal qualities.
Curiosities
Ig Nobel Prize
In 2008 he won the Ig Nobel Prize in Economics for an article linking ovulation to the earnings of lap dancers, based on a sample of eighteen dancers at a club in Albuquerque.
Controversial tweet
In 2013 he posted a tweet about obese PhD applicants that caused controversy. He later apologized and said it was part of a research project, a claim that ethics boards at his university rejected.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.