NCSE is pleased to offer a free preview (PDF) of Marlene Zuk's Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live (W. W. Norton, 2013). The preview consists of the whole of the introduction, in which Zuk sketches her argument against "the idea that our modern lives are out of touch with the way human beings evolved and that we need to redress the imbalance," writing that it "flatly contradicts what we now understand about the way evolution works — namely, that rate matters."
Reviewing Zuk's book for Nature, John Hawks wrote, "She ably presents a sceptical and light-hearted view of a long list of palaeofantasies and supposed solutions." And Richard Wrangham praised it as "an elegant guide for the perplexed," adding, "Paleofantasy cuts through a confusing tangle of facts and claims to give us a trustworthy road map to the glorious problems of who we are and where we come from." Marlene Zuk is a professor of ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Minnesota.