Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene - Hardcover

Eldredge, Niles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393050823 ISBN 13: 9780393050820

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2004

Synopsis

An evolutionary biologist argues against the belief that sexual behavior is governed by genes, identifying an intricate interplay among humans that involves day-to-day survival, reproduction, and learned cultural factors.

About this title

About the Author

Niles Eldredge is a paleontologist and a curator at the American Museum of Natural History and the author of many books on evolutionary theory. He lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

Reviews

As the title promises, this is all about sex, but not the way you might think. Eldredge (The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism, etc.), a paleontologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, believes that sociobiologists like Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson are dead wrong in their explanation of life as a mechanism by which "selfish genes" try to propagate and ensure their own survival. Explaining that life as we know it combines two drives, one economic and one reproductive, Eldredge writes that "the drive to eat and simply stay alive" is as fundamental as the drive to reproduce. In fact, he argues, the very fact that we've evolved to have sex, a "horribly inefficient way of passing genes along," seems to indicate that there's more at play in our sex lives than the machinations of selfish genes. Eldredge persuasively describes sex itself as having been "decoupled" from reproduction and bound up with the economic side of human life (sex for "fun, profit, and power," as he puts it). While at moments it can be a bit difficult to wrap one's mind around his argument, Eldredge has thankfully picked up at least one thing from the sociobiologists: their clear and friendly prose style (among other things, the book contains perhaps the most accessible overview available of the history of evolutionary biology). Eldredge doesn't offer as simple an answer to his eponymous question as those against whom he is arguing, and his insightful thesis that genes alone do not govern human behavior is bound to provoke controversy in the evolutionary biology world.
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Noted paleontologist Eldredge here confronts a theory about the evolutionary process that has acquired popular sway: that of the "selfish gene." Popularized in the eponymous 1976 book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, the proposition that evolution operates by genes' perpetuation of themselves (chiefly through sexual competition) is severely criticized by Eldredge. He is especially critical of evolutionary psychology, arguing that the whole concept of sexual competition driving evolution ignores the important roles played by economics and cultural forces. Eldredge also discusses the spectrum of humans' sexual behavior, ranging from loving to violent, querying sex's relation to procreation and comparing his stances with those of the evolutionary psychologists whom he finds so wanting. Eldredge is an earnest writer winningly dedicated to clarifying and deepening readers' understanding of scientific controversies, and his new book is sure to inspire heated debate among scientists and nonscientists alike. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393050823
• ISBN 13: 9780393050820
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224