The Hare and the Tortoise: Culture, Biology, and Human Nature - Softcover

Barash, David P.

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9780140087482: The Hare and the Tortoise: Culture, Biology, and Human Nature

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140087486 ISBN 13: 9780140087482

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1987

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A BOOK INTENDED FOR THE INTELLIGENT LAYPERSON, 'THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE' PRESENTS A NEW WAY OF THINKING ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS AND THEIR PLACE IN THE WORLD, DEVELOPING THE THESIS THAT MOST OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS ARE DUE TO THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RAPIDLY MOVING CULTURE (THE HARE) AND SLOW MOVING BIOLOGY (THE TORTOISE). FOLLOWING A DESCRIPTION OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION, BARASH SHOWS HOW THE PARADIGM OF BIOLOGY/CULTURE CONFLICT ILLUMINATES CURRENT ISSUES RELATED TO SEX, FEMINISM AND SEXISM, FAMILY STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION, AGGRESSION; THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE, POPULATION ENVIRONMENTAL ABUSE AND ALIENATION. IN MAKING THIS ARGUMENTS BARASH RANGES WIDELY FROM EARLY JAWLESS FISH TO THE WORK OF BARBARA EHRENREICH, FROM THE SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR OF CHIMPANZEES TO THE ABUSE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.'THE HARE & THE TORTOISE'ABUNDANTLY ILLUSTRATED WITH EXAMPLES FROM HISTORY, CURRENT EVENTS & THE LIVES OF ANIMALS, IS A COMPELLING AND HIGHLY READABLE EXAMINA- TION OF THE COMPLEX INTERPLAY BETWEEN CULTURAL BEHAVOIOUR AMD TRADITION.

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From Publishers Weekly:

We have one foot in the cultural present and the other in our biological past, writes Barash, author of The Whispering Within. He examines the conflict between galloping culture and slow-moving biology as affects sex, feminism and family structure. He addresses the subjects of the nuclear arms race (in a world of Neanderthal mentality), the population explosion, aggression and alienation. Barash looks to the future: the major factor controlling human reproductive success will be the rational intent of prospective parents; about our long practice of artificial selection with domestic animals and plants, he describes this as culture tampering with the fundamentals of biology. His quarrel is not with culture, only with our uses of it. Barash enlivens this study of ourselves with anecdotes from animal life, anthropology and literature; it gives fresh insight into the human condition.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Barash's central observation is that human biological evolution (the tortoise) has not kept pace with human cultural evolution (the hare) and cannot do so. Thus our once-adaptive biologically determined behavior patterns for reproduction and aggressiveness, and our attitudes toward the environment, technology, and members of the opposite sex, are superfluous or even maladaptive. Barash makes some good points, especially in the chapters on population and environment, but elsewhere he rambles and resorts to near platitudes. The discussion of "Neanderthal Mentality" is nothing but a plea to join the antinuclear movement as the only way to cure apprehensiveness in American youth. Overall this is not an especially interesting essay. Walter P. Coombs, Jr., Biology Dept., Western New England Coll., Springfield, Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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