The Diary of a CEOThe Cancelled Professor: Men Are Hardwired To Cheat! - Dr Gad Saad
Steven Bartlett and Dr. Gad Saad on evolution, Desire, and Truth: Dr Gad Saad Dismantles Modern Myths.
In this episode of The Diary of a CEO, featuring Dr. Gad Saad and Narrator, The Cancelled Professor: Men Are Hardwired To Cheat! - Dr Gad Saad explores evolution, Desire, and Truth: Dr Gad Saad Dismantles Modern Myths Dr Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist, explains how evolved biology underpins human behavior, from domestic violence and infidelity to consumer choice and political ideology. He argues that many contentious patterns—such as men’s and women’s differing mating strategies, step‑parent abuse, and status signaling—are best understood through evolutionary logic rather than culture alone.
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Evolution, Desire, and Truth: Dr Gad Saad Dismantles Modern Myths
- Dr Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist, explains how evolved biology underpins human behavior, from domestic violence and infidelity to consumer choice and political ideology. He argues that many contentious patterns—such as men’s and women’s differing mating strategies, step‑parent abuse, and status signaling—are best understood through evolutionary logic rather than culture alone.
- Saad repeatedly distinguishes between explaining a behavior and morally justifying it, warning against the idea of 'forbidden knowledge' and the suppression of research that conflicts with prevailing ideologies. He introduces concepts like mate desirability scores, assortative mating, sexual selection, and the mismatch hypothesis to show how our Stone Age minds struggle in a modern world.
- The conversation also covers masculinity, beta males, porn use and addiction, happiness, meaning, birth order effects, and the dangers of what Saad calls 'suicidal empathy' and equality-of-outcome politics. Throughout, he defends free speech as a deontological principle and criticizes contemporary 'woke' movements for subordinating truth to feelings and ideology.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasEvolutionary explanations are not moral justifications, but they are essential for solving real problems.
Saad stresses that describing why a behavior evolved (e.g., male jealousy, infidelity, step‑parent violence) does not endorse it. Just as oncologists study cancer without 'supporting' cancer, social scientists must be free to study sex and group differences without being accused of bigotry. Treating some findings as 'forbidden knowledge' because they offend ideological sensibilities undermines science and makes social problems harder to address.
Male and female mating behavior is shaped by different evolutionary pressures, but both sexes desire sexual variety.
Across cultures, men report a stronger desire for sexual variety and more partners, but women are not 'Victorian prudes.' Women are more likely to cheat when maximally fertile and less likely to insist on contraception if they are 'shopping for superior genes.' Saad cites sperm competition, testicle size across primates, and potential specialized sperm types (fertilizers, blockers, killers) as evidence that ancestral females often had multiple partners in short time windows.
Mate desirability is multi-attribute and largely assortative; couples are more stable when their 'scores' track together over time.
Saad proposes a 'mate desirability score' that aggregates traits like looks, status, intelligence, ambition, and personality. People tend to pair with partners at a similar overall level (assortative mating). He hypothesizes that relationship failure is more likely when one partner’s score rises or falls significantly relative to the other—for example, a high-school cheerleader who later becomes a neurosurgeon paired with a former star athlete who becomes overweight and chronically unemployed.
Certain family structures and jealousy triggers carry enormous risk for violence, and ignoring them is dangerous.
Drawing on Daly and Wilson’s work, Saad notes that the presence of a step‑parent is roughly 100 times more predictive of child abuse than other commonly cited factors such as alcoholism or prior abuse. Similarly, the person most likely to be lethally dangerous to a woman is her husband or long‑term partner, with suspected or actual infidelity being the leading precipitant of violence. Understanding these risk factors evolutionarily (paternity certainty, investment in genetic offspring) is key for targeted prevention.
Status, confidence, and competence are more improvable—and often more important—than immutable traits like height.
Women universally prioritize cues to male status (ambition, dominance, resources, trajectory) more than men prioritize female status. Men can raise their desirability significantly by improving physical condition, social skills, assertiveness, knowledge, and competence. Saad emphasizes that mating is 'compensatory': a shorter man with high status, charisma, or creativity can outcompete a taller but meek and unimpressive rival. He encourages low‑status men to stop self-medicating with porn and video games and instead build real-world value.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesThe most dangerous individual that a woman will ever meet in her life is her husband, and the overwhelming number one reason is suspected or realized infidelity.
— Dr Gad Saad
The idea that monogamy is natural is not true. It is an institutional solution to the fact that we are a bi-parental species.
— Dr Gad Saad
Science truth exists independently of whether it supports your ideology or not. That’s why I wrote The Parasitic Mind—because people are parasitized by bad ideologies.
— Dr Gad Saad
If you think that there is some knowledge that should not be pursued because it doesn’t support your ideology, that’s a grotesquely dangerous principle.
— Dr Gad Saad
Human beings are a hierarchical species. Communism is a great idea—for the wrong species.
— Dr Gad Saad
QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE
5 questionsYou argue that step‑parenthood is the top predictor of child abuse; how should policymakers and social workers use that data without unfairly stigmatizing all blended families?
Dr Gad Saad, an evolutionary behavioral scientist, explains how evolved biology underpins human behavior, from domestic violence and infidelity to consumer choice and political ideology. He argues that many contentious patterns—such as men’s and women’s differing mating strategies, step‑parent abuse, and status signaling—are best understood through evolutionary logic rather than culture alone.
Your 'mate desirability score' hypothesis predicts that divergence in value over time drives divorce—how would you rigorously test that empirically, and what interventions might help couples keep their scores aligned?
Saad repeatedly distinguishes between explaining a behavior and morally justifying it, warning against the idea of 'forbidden knowledge' and the suppression of research that conflicts with prevailing ideologies. He introduces concepts like mate desirability scores, assortative mating, sexual selection, and the mismatch hypothesis to show how our Stone Age minds struggle in a modern world.
You distinguish between explaining infidelity evolutionarily and morally condemning it; in your own life, where do you personally draw the line between 'that’s natural' and 'that’s unacceptable' when instincts conflict with values?
The conversation also covers masculinity, beta males, porn use and addiction, happiness, meaning, birth order effects, and the dangers of what Saad calls 'suicidal empathy' and equality-of-outcome politics. Throughout, he defends free speech as a deontological principle and criticizes contemporary 'woke' movements for subordinating truth to feelings and ideology.
You’re a free speech absolutist even regarding Holocaust denial; given your family history in Lebanon and your parents’ kidnapping, is there any speech that emotionally tempts you to want legal limits, even if you reject them rationally?
Your concept of 'suicidal empathy' suggests we’re overcorrecting for harms to minorities at the cost of system stability—how would you design a concrete decision framework for governments to distinguish healthy compassion from destructive overreach?
Chapter Breakdown
Pursuit of Truth, Forbidden Knowledge, and Evolutionary Thinking
Saad introduces himself as an evolutionary behavioral scientist devoted to truth and freedom of inquiry. He critiques the growing notion of 'forbidden knowledge,' especially around sex and group differences, and outlines what evolutionary behavioral science actually does: explaining human behavior through the lens of natural and sexual selection.
Evolutionary Explanations of Violence: Stepparents and Jealous Husbands
Using classic evolutionary psychology research, Saad explains why step‑parenthood is an enormous statistical predictor of child abuse and why husbands are the most dangerous men in women’s lives. He uses animal analogies (lions, Cinderella) to illuminate how parental investment and paternity uncertainty shape human violence.
Cheating, Monogamy, and Women’s Desire for Variety
Saad explores whether cheating is 'justifiable' and whether monogamy is natural. He argues that both sexes have evolved appetites for sexual variety, with men stronger on average, but shows how women’s cheating patterns and physiology also reveal powerful non-monogamous tendencies.
Kin Selection, Paternity Uncertainty, and Family Investment
The discussion broadens to kin selection and how genetic relatedness shapes who we invest in. Saad explains why maternal kin invest more than paternal kin and how evolutionary principles predict real-world patterns like gift sizes at weddings.
Sex, Status, and Mate Desirability Scores
Saad lays out how much human behavior is driven by sex and introduces his framework of four Darwinian modules along with the concept of a 'mate desirability score.' He details what makes men and women attractive and why assortative mating helps predict relationship trajectories.
Masculinity, Beta Males, and Building Attraction
The conversation turns to modern masculinity, sexual market imbalances, and the 'beta male.' Saad argues that cultural pathologizing of masculinity (e.g., 'toxic masculinity,' MeToo overreach) has made men timid, while women still want bold, confident partners.
Pornography, Addiction, and Evolutionary Mismatch
Saad analyzes pornography through evolutionary theory, distinguishing between adaptations and exaptations. He describes porn as hijacking our mating psychology and discusses when use is benign versus when it becomes a crippling addiction affecting motivation, sex lives, and productivity.
Happiness, Life Design, and Birth Order Effects
Drawing from his book on happiness, Saad outlines key decisions and mindsets that foster a good life. He highlights partner and career choice, the importance of creative work and temporal freedom, and introduces birth-order research suggesting later-borns are disproportionately creative rebels.
Woke Culture, Suicidal Empathy, and Equality of Outcome
Saad applies his 'parasitic mind' framework to modern political debates about wokeness, gender identity, free speech, and immigration. He defends free speech absolutism (except direct incitement to violence), argues against 'forbidden knowledge,' and criticizes equality-of-outcome policies and what he calls 'suicidal empathy.'
Politics, Trump vs. Harris, and Final Reflections on Character and Connection
In a politically charged segment, Saad explains why, as a Canadian, he would vote for Trump over Kamala Harris, citing strength, resilience, and deterrence value against hostile actors despite acknowledging Trump’s moral flaws. The conversation closes on the importance of social connections and a formative piece of advice from Saad’s mother about purity and expectations.
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
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