PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
March 30, 2004
Review
(Starred review. Singled out as among best of month.)
Roughgarden/EVOLUTION'S RAINBOW
This brilliant and accessible work of biological criticism has the potential
to revolutionize the way readers conceive of gender and sexuality in the natural
world. Roughgarden, a professor of biology at Stanford University and a member
of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, argues that the diversity of gender and
sexuality one finds in many species suggests that evolutionary biologists of a
strictly Darwinian bent are often misguided, since, according to Roughgarden,
they erroneously assume a universally applicable gender binary in all species.
The first half of the book brings that sexual diversity to light through
innumerable examples among birds, reptiles, fish and mammals provided in highly
readable anecdotes. The significance of this first section lies not only in this
startlingly original portrait of nature, but also in how it suggests that
contemporary Darwinian sexual selection theory is in part a result of cultural
bias, since it "predicts that the baseline outcome of social evolution is horny,
handsome, healthy warriors paired with discreetly discerning damsels."
Roughgarden critiques this theory through an expansive study of biological
scholarship, highlighting the frequent contradictions between such claims and
the data used (and, she argues, manipulated) to prove them.
The second and
undoubtedly more controversial section discusses sexual diversity in humans.
Taking as a given the presence in our own species of gay, lesbian, bisexual,
transgendered, transsexual and intersex persons, she reads current scientific
writing-on a supposed "gay gene," on gender reassignment and other
issues-through a perspective that sees diversity as an advantage, not a
handicap. Readers more accustomed to traditional categories of gender and
sexuality in humans will undoubtedly be surprised at how different a portrait
emerges from Roughgarden's deeply personal and insistently ethical point of
view. (May)
Copyright 2004, Publishers Weekly