The Red Queen_ Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature - Matt Ridley [172]
Mankind is a self-domesticated animal; a mammal; an ape; a social ape; an ape in which the male takes the initiative in courtship and females usually leave the society of their birth; an ape in which men are predators, women herbivorous foragers; an ape in which males are relatively hierarchical, females relatively egalitarian; an ape in which males contribute unusually large amounts of investment in the upbringing of their offspring by provisioning their mates and their children with food, protection and company; an ape in which monogamous pair bonds are the rule, but many males have affairs and occasional males achieve polygamy; an ape in which females mated to low-ranking males often cuckold their husbands in order to gain access to the genes of higher-ranking males; an ape that has been subject to unusually intense mutual sexual selection, so that many of the features of the female body (lips, breasts, waists) and the mind of both sexes (songs, competitive ambition, status seeking) are designed for use in competition for mates; an ape that has developed an extraordinary range of new instincts to learn by association, to communicate by speech and to pass on traditions. But still an ape.
Half the ideas in this book are probably wrong. The history of human science is not encouraging. Galton’s eugenics, Freud’s unconscious, Durkheim’s sociology, Mead’s cultural anthropology, Skinner’s behaviourism, Piaget’s early learning and even Wilson’s sociobiology all appear in retrospect to be riddled with errors and false perspectives. No doubt the Red Queen’s approach is just another chapter in this marred tale. No doubt, its politicization and the vested interests ranged against it will do as much damage as was done to previous attempts to understand human nature. The western cultural revolution that calls itself political correctness will no doubt stifle inquiries it does not like, such as those into the mental differences between men and women. I sometimes feel that we are fated never to understand ourselves, because part of our nature is to turn every inquiry into an expression of our own nature: ambitious, illogical, manipulative and religious. ‘Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the Press,’ said David Hume.
But then I remember how much progress we have made since Hume, and how much nearer to the goal of a complete understanding of human nature we are than ever before. We will never quite reach that goal, and it would perhaps be better if we never did. But as long as we can keep asking ‘why?’, we have a noble purpose.
Notes
CHAPTER ONE : Human Nature
1 Dawkins 1991.
2 Weismann 1889.
3 Weismann 1889.
4 A few scientists argue that Chinese people are descended from ‘Peking man’, the local version of Homo erectus, but the evidence is now heavily against them.
5 Karl Marx, in ‘Criticism of the Gotha Programme’ (1875) was paraphrasing Mikhail Bakunin, who declared, when on trial after the failure of an anarchist rising at Lyons (1870): ‘From each according to his faculties, to each according to his needs.’
6 Not all anthropologists would agree that all modern people are descendants of a race that was confined to Africa until one hundred thousand years ago, but most do.
7 Tooby and Cosmides 1990.
8 Mayr 1983; Dawkins 1986.
9 Hunter, Nur and Werren 1993.
10 Dawkins 1991.
11 Dawkins 1986.
12 Tiger 1991.
13 See Edward Tenner’s article on ‘Revenge Theory’ in Harvard Magazine, March/April 1991 for why this is so.
14 Wilson 1975.
CHAPTER TWO: The Enigma
1 Bell 1982.
2 Weismann 1889.
3 Brooks 1988.
4 J. Maynard Smith, interview.
5 Levin 1988.
6 Weismann 1889.
7 Bell 1982.
8 Fisher 1930.
9 Müller 1932.
10 Crow and Kimura 1965.