The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness. Joan Roughgarden . University of California Press, 2009. 272 pp., illus. $24.95 (ISBN 9780520258266 cloth).
Stephen Pruett-Jones
Stephen Pruett-Jones (pruett-jones@uchicago.edu) is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.
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To see what this has to do with Joan Roughgarden's book, The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness, some history is useful. Charles Darwin proposed the theory of sexual selection as a corollary to natural selection because he recognized that animals possess many traits that appear detrimental to survival, such as encumbering decoration and gaudy coloration. He proposed that such traits are beneficial, even if they reduce survival, if they confer a long-term advantage in terms of relative mating success. Darwin recognized that such an advantage could accrue either because elaborate traits determined the outcome of male-male competition or because females preferred them.
The theory of sexual selection was largely discounted for 75 years or so, because although biologists (most of whom were males) agreed that malemale competition was obvious, they mostly disagreed that females actively influenced the distribution of mating. Yet over the last 50 years, biologists have documented time and again that female choice is often the most important process determining who mates with whom. Since this realization, evolutionary biologists and behavioral ecologists have embraced sexual selection as critical to understanding both morphological and behavioral diversity. The underlying premise that organisms compete for a limited resource, which determines success or failure in reproduction, is central not only to sexual selection but to many other ideas about the evolution of life.
In The Genial Gene, Roughgarden argues that we have it all wrong. Even Darwin had it all wrong, she holds: Sexual selection is “out” (as an intact theory). Also wrong is everyone who thinks that competition was important in the evolution of anything to do with sexual reproduction, the evolution of male and female gametes, secondary sexual traits, morphological differences between males and females, mating systems, parental care, enlarged brains in humans, and human attractiveness (to list just some areas). This is no small challenge. The author argues that almost 100 years of research on sex has, at some level, been misguided. Where have we all gone wrong? Roughgarden believes our mistake was being seduced by competition as a force underlying social behavior and sexual reproduction. What is the alternative? The author is convinced it is cooperation, and she expands on a theory of social selection (originally proposed by Mary Jane West-Eberhard) that she hopes will replace sexual selection.
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