That's the new book by Joan Roughgarden and the subtitle is Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness. I'm not sure how true this book is, but if you're looking for a new popular book on evolutionary biology which is engaging, this is the first one in some time.
The book rejects the "Red Queen" hypothesis for why there is sex (e.g., outracing parasites by frequently rolling the genetic dice) and presents a "portfolio diversification" view:
The explanation for why asexual species keep popping up and quickly dying compared with sexual species would seem to be completely explained by thinking of asexual species as genetic versions of get-rich-schemes and of sexual populations as genetic versions of long-term mutual funds, without any need to invoke cost-of-meiosis considerations.
In other words, sex brings a genetic diversity which protects against rapidly changing environmental conditions and thus favors parental genes.
The author also argues against signaling theories of the peacock's tail and against sexual selection more generally (especially on that latter topic I was not convinced but the discussion of sexual dimorphism and why it doesn't always hold is nonetheless interesting). She presents "social selection" as an alternative and if you turn to pp.237-8 you will see an excellent page-and-a-half summary of what the book is about. Male promiscuity, for instance, is viewed as a genetic "tactic of last resort."
Recommended, but with caution. It is a must for anyone who reads about evolutionary biology and by the end of the book I was less skeptical than when I started it.
Here is a summary of Roughgarden's previous book.
As a note to the unfamiliar: Roughgarden is not an anti-evolution writer (far from it – biologist, etc., etc.). The nature of the dispute is more similar to the old arguments between Gould and Dawkins – one which would be largely scientific, except for being almost certain to be cited by hordes of creationists as evidence of flaws.
I read The Selfish Gene when Tyler recommended it on the blog and it is truly one of those life changing books. But it is the only evolutionary biology book I’ve read outside my college genetics course and so I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the good conjecture from the bad conjecture in The Genial Gene.
What do you think? Is Genial Gene worth it for the fairly ignorant on EvoBio to read?
We must all be wary of evolutionary “just-so stories.” Keeping that in mind though, it’s always good to be exposed to more alternative hypotheses.
“In other words, sex brings a genetic diversity which protects against rapidly changing environmental conditions and thus favors parental genes.”
Isn’t this the old “group selection” explanation for sexual reproduction? And group selection really, really has not had a good time of things over the past decades…
All an individual of a species cares about is his/her/its complement of genes…
But perhaps I am misunderstanding.
Good lord, Asdf, that’s a massacre. I am going to need a very good reason to take Roughgarden seriously after watching all that blood on the page.
As a biologist, Roughgarden’s hypotheses here are pure quackery. Reading them will make you dumber and inflate her checking account. I suggest doing neither.
Yes, amusingly enough, Dr. McCloskey, another defamer of Bailey, has claimed that Greg Clark’s “A Farewell to Alms,” “is going to appeal only to the Steve Sailers, Stephen [sic] Pinkers, and Seth Roberts of the world and is going to repel everyone else†.
On a summary note, if Tyler likes a book on evolution by Joan Roughgarden and doesn’t like the book on evolution by Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran, I think we can now clearly see how much value we should put in Tyler’s views of books on evolution.
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