Why Sex Matters
A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior - Revised Edition
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- USD 25.99
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- USD 25.99
Descripción editorial
Why are men, like other primate males, usually the aggressors and risk takers? Why do women typically have fewer sexual partners? In Why Sex Matters, Bobbi Low ranges from ancient Rome to modern America, from the Amazon to the Arctic, and from single-celled organisms to international politics, to show that these and many other questions about human behavior largely come down to evolution and sex. More precisely, as she shows in this uniquely comprehensive and accessible survey of behavioral and evolutionary ecology, they come down to the basic principle that all organisms evolved to maximize their reproductive success and seek resources to do so, but that sometimes cooperation and collaboration are the most effective ways to succeed.
This newly revised edition has been thoroughly updated to include the latest research and reflect exciting changes in the field, including how our evolutionary past continues to affect our ecological present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
University of Michigan professor Low uses an evolutionary approach to understand and explain many common human actions. The central question she poses is, "How do environmental conditions influence our behavior and our lifetimes?" While many might balk at reducing much of human interaction merely to a desire to reproduce and provide for our offspring, Low argues persuasively that similar analyses of other species work remarkably well, and she provides a wealth of supporting data from studies of cultures ranging from indigenous populations in Africa to 19th-century Sweden. She concludes that men and women, because of the difference in the numbers of sperm and eggs produced, are evolutionarily designed to have disparate ambitions: males seek many mating opportunities, and females concentrate on acquiring the resources to ensure the survival of their young. Low notes that many social problems--warfare and environmental degradation among them--are the results of the power, perhaps misdirected, of the reproductive drives of both men and women (she links war to male aggression and environmental problems to the female drive to acquire resources for the raising of children). Having deduced that "we have created these problems by doing what we have evolved to do," she admits that she has no advice about "what to do next." Her findings are not new. Indeed, her biological explanation of what many people now view as socially constructed gender roles is bound to earn her vociferous critics. But her cross-cultural data set makes her conclusions hard to ignore.
