This is a well-written and interesting discussion of the shifts in theory concerning the evolution of sexual reproduction that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, after the old model of “sexual reproduction optimizes variety in the gene pool” began to be doubted and undermined. Some ot these controversies are very abstruse, and Ridley did a good job of clarifying them for a non-professional reader. It was published a decade ago, but from what I understand there has been no major shift in the theoretical landscape since then, so I wouldn’t say it was outdated. The weakest part of the book is where Ridley tried to apply the biological findings to human society. For example, he rather misunderstood the “tragedy of the commons” thesis and misapplied his biological model to a social question in which he had the facts wrong. [I think I’ll write more on this in a future blog, after I rustle up some sources]. But the book was still a good job of science popularization, and Ridley had the good taste not to turn the people he disagreed with into villains and recognized that good science can be done by people on the wrong track (and bad science can be done by people on the right track).
0 Comments.