The Red Queen

XenonOfArcticus writes "I first came upon Matt Ridley when Slashdot reviewed Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Parts (here and here ). Ridley's finely-honed technical writing style could make a treatise on the Boston White Pages intriguing and enlightening, and his treatment of the human Genome was simply eye-opening. I had to have more, and went out immediately to order every Ridley book I could find. Luckily, The Red Queen and The Origins of Virtue were already available and his latest, Nature via Nurture was just hitting shelves. Prepare yourself for my ongoing Overview of Ridley in Three Parts." Read on for the rest of Xenon's review. The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature author Matt Ridley pages 405 publisher Penguin Books rating Excellent reviewer Chris 'Xenon' Hanson ISBN 0140245480 summary Why sex is the reason humans are at the top of the food chain.

After laying our souls (and chromosomes!) bare in Genome, Ridley swiftly moves on to a topic that is variously fascinating and taboo: Sex. Every Slashdot user it seems wants more information about it. Ridley immediately tackles the Paradox of Sex: In an asexual organism, every individual of the species can create offspring. In sexual creatures (like people!), only the female can produce young. What's so great about sex then, that overcomes this obvious numerical handicap? In eleven brisk chapters, Ridley unravels the riddles with examples of how and why other species Do It (or Don't It), and what it all means.

Topics explored (though not claimed to be definitively explained) include mitochondrial DNA, dowries, the genetic foundations of harems, how males of a species could develop flagrant 'handicaps' like bright coloration or songs, monogamy, polygamy, adultery and a small species of New Zealand snail that suffers from a parasite named (I'm not making this up) Microphallus. One of the most compelling concepts is that a species' strongest competitor (and driving force behind their evolution) is their own kind, not their foes. In the end it is this argument, called The Red Queen (after a Lewis Carrol character that runs quickly but never gets ahead) that explains so much of our evolutionary hodgepodge of DNA and instinctive behaviour.

Around the world The Red Queen hustles, dissecting the environmental clues given by the mating rituals and biology of various species, asexual, sexual, heterosexual, hermaphroditic and otherwise, comparing them to Homo Sapiens, "the sexiest primate alive" (except for bonobos). As for humans, Ridley divulges how walking upright and our large brains are connected to our comparatively slow maturation, long lifespan and lack of hair. Always in the background is the unquestionable tenet: No one is descended from a celibate organism.

Ridley daringly takes on feminism and gender equality by pointing out that males and females DO differ genetically (duh!) and that in other species the effect of this difference is quite marked. Rather than degenerating into a misogynistic orgy of gender-bashing, he exposes the reasons why (among other differences) men might actually be better at reading maps and women might be more social. Both genders have to get along in order to continue the species, so understanding our differences may be a boon to all. While in the mood for controversy, Ridley delves into the reasons for the genetic-confounding phenomena of homosexuality in a species.

You don't need to have read Genome to read Red Queen, but if you have, you might find all of the puzzles fitting together into an even bigger picture, to be further sketched out in The Origins of Virtue and Nature Via Nurture. This book is not illustrated and probably won't help you get a date next weekend, but it might explain why you're instinctively attracted to those three young blondes at the bar. And why they're all more interested in the cinderblock quarterback of the football team. And despite what my inbox tells me, it has nothing to do with the size of a certain part of your anatomy, but rather the size of ... well, go read the book.

Table of Contents

• Human Nature
• The Enigma
• The Power of Parasites
• Genetic Mutiny and Gender
• The Peacock's Tale
• Polygamy and the Nature of Men
• Monogamy and the Nature of Women
• Sexing the Mind
• The Uses of Beauty
• The Intellectual Chess Game
• The Self-Domesticated Ape

You can purchase The Red Queen from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

If you don't know

[Surak]

What's so great about sex then, that overcomes this obvious numerical handicap?

If you don't know, you're probably too young for me to explain it to you! ;)

Red Queen is a much earlier book than Genome

[isomeme]

The review (while otherwise good) implies that Genome predates Red Queen, when in fact the former came out in 2000 and the latter in 1995.

By the way, I echo the recommendation -- reading this book profoundly changed how I think about evolution and genetics. The only comparably assumption-shattering biology book I can think of is Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life.

Re:Red Queen is a much earlier book than Genome

[frozenray]

> The review (while otherwise good) implies that Genome predates Red Queen, when in fact the former came out in 2000 and the latter in 1995.

You're right, The Red Queen predates Genome. The Viking edition is from 1993, by the way - 10 years of scientific research have passed since then, and I would very much appreciate an updated edition taking into account the new insights gathered since then.

See this older post of mine for some remarks on Ridley's books.

By the way, I echo the recommendation -- reading this book profoundly changed how I think about evolution and genetics. The only comparably assumption-shattering biology book I can think of is Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life.

Reading Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" and Ridley's "The Red Queen" was a disturbing and exciting experience for me, because it shattered many beliefs I held about mankind and society. I have since read many more books on the subject, and here are a few I can recommend if you're interested in contemporary scientific views on evolution and related fields of study:

Matt Ridley: The Origins of Virtue (*)
Steven Pinker: How the Mind Works, The Language Instinct
Richard Dawkins: The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable
Geoffrey Miller: The Mating Mind

(*) with a caveat: he lets his political views influence his writing a little too much in this one

A few percent

[blamanj]

males and females DO differ genetically

It has been noted that the difference between the XX and XY chromosomes in the human males and females amounts to about 3% of genetic material.

Note also that in general the human species only differs about 3% from chimpanzies.

From this some have inferred that a human male is more similar to a male chimpanzee than to a human female.

recommended related reading

[mattblanchard]

If you've never read it, I highly recommend The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.

It has enough sex talk in it to satisfy your prurient interests. Not the gross squshy kind, but the clean, technical sex that will hit /.ers right in the honeypot.

Ooh baby... you extended my phenotype!

A fascinating book that enthralls as much as a nov

[rkz]

The Red Queen - named after a theory which is itself named for the 'Alice' character, who must run as fast as she can simply to keep pace with the world around her - fascinated from beginning to end. Looking at the evolution of sex, it is filled with intriguing facts, remarkable examples, and frequently alarming revelations. From why the peacock has that remarkable tail (it's probably to do with sexy sons) to why polygamy benefits females rather than males, the book is a real eye-opener. Once you've learned the secret of the lek, the local disco will never seem the same again. And, given that a man's testicular size is evidence that neither he nor his partner evolved for true monogamy, you may not find this book terribly reassuring. Polygyny, polyandry, incest, infanticide, and group-bonking bonobos: it may leave you thinking that, in comparison to even some of our closest relatives, we humans have very conservative sex lives indeed. And we may only have started doing it at all so that we don't fall prey to parasites! A great read, and real incentive to read anything else available by Matt Ridley.

Matt Ridley interview

[akuzi]

There's an interesting video interview with Matt Ridley where he talks about his latest book 'Nature via Nurture' on edge.org http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/ridley03/ridley_in dex.html

Re:Resident evil reference

[frozenray]

> Is this where the "Red Queen" in resident evil got her name?

The title of Ridley's book is a reference to Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking Glass":

[...] Just at this moment, somehow or other, they began to run.

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her: and still the Queen kept crying `Faster! Faster!' but Alice felt she could not go faster, thought she had not breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. `I wonder if all the things move along with us?' thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, `Faster! Don't try to talk!'

Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and still the Queen cried `Faster! Faster!' and dragged her along. `Are we nearly there?' Alice managed to pant out at last.

`Nearly there!' the Queen repeated. `Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster! And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.

`Now! Now!' cried the Queen. `Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy. [...]

Alice looked round her in great surprise. `Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

`Of course it is,' said the Queen, `what would you have it?'

`Well, in out country,' said Alice, still panting a little, `you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

`A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. `Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

The last paragraph nicely sums up the view that in evolution, standing still means falling into extinction and just keeping one's place is a difficult proposition.

bonobos deserve strong mention

[small_dick]

Bonobos are very bisexual, have sex frequently (VERY frequently--several times a day) mostly just for pleasure, females run the show, female-female sex is very common, and men must beg or earn sexual pleasure from the females.

They are the closest animals to humans (genetically speaking) walk upright fairly often, similar size, etc.

Once you've studied bonobos for awhile, you start to get the feeling that about 99% of our sexual taboos are strictly cultural, developed over time as a function of the need for societal control, either to limit disease propagation or to assert power hierarchies, probably to keep a large pool of females available for the wealthy patriarchs.