John Tooby (July 26, 1952 – November 10, 2023) was an American

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

who, together with his

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 explanation, interpretatio ...

wife Leda Cosmides, pioneered 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 regard to the ancestral problems they evolved ...

Biography

Tooby received his PhD in

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

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1989 and was 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, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

(UCSB). 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-directed the UCSB Center for Evolutionary Psychology. Cosmides and Tooby jointly received the 2020 Jean Nicod Prize. Tooby died on November 10, 2023, at the age of 71.

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 newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...