The Red Queen

Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

By: Matt Ridley

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Referring to Lewis Carroll's Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass, a character who has to keep running to stay in the same place, Matt Ridley demonstrates why sex is humanity's best strategy for outwitting its constantly mutating internal predators. The Red Queen answers dozens of other riddles of human nature and culture - including why men propose marriage, the method behind our maddening notions of beauty, and the disquieting fact that a woman is more likely to conceive a child by an adulterous lover than by her husband.

Brilliantly written, The Red Queen offers an extraordinary new way of interpreting the human condition and how it has evolved.

©1993 Matt Ridley (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

Perspective shifting

Unless interested in biology, the beginning is a little dry, but completely worth getting through. The more interesting later section uses these concepts and theories to attempt to explain much of human behavior with very plausible and supremely interesting theories.

Informative

This book was a bit outdated as of now, but nevertheless informative. I enjoyed all the background information and detailed explanations.

Great narrator, good history, poor conclusions

First of all, this book offers a good history of the thinking about certain aspects of sexual selection from an evolutionary perspective. The narration is excellent, as one should expect from Simon Prebble. The book is generally well-written if less than perfectly edited.

However, I find that the author often falls into a reactionary trap of dismissing too much of the substance of arguments that differ in assumptions or details from his own point of view. Further, the author is often inconsistent about his own apparent principles regarding the appropriate weight that ought to be given to certain scientific studies. In one paragraph he can dismiss the entire premise of the fields of anthropology, sociology, and psychology while embracing without criticism results of studies in those fields which do happen to match up to his thesis.

And on numerous occasions the author is more than willing to make sweeping assumptions about potential sociological results because "everyone knows" what the answer would be--even while admitting there is no evidence on the subject either way. And in so doing he falls into the exact same traps he criticizes practitioners of those other disciplines for doing so. On one page, he rejects assumptions of anthropologists that lack evidence, and on the next he lambasts them for demanding strong evidence before changing how they do their research.

Finally, besides these numerous logical errors, cherry-picking, and conclusion-jumping, the author demonstrates an unfortunately sloppiness in style when he is willing to constantly assert "boys are X" and "women are Y" and "is it any surprise that boys do X better than girls" and vice versa. Yes, he's right that there are gender differences in psychology and average skill, but he's so interested in proving wrong the social scientists--who, prior to strong evidence becoming available otherwise, preferred to assume both genders thought in the same way--that he raises slight differences in averages into sweeping generalizations that are foundational to his arguments... at least when it suits him. Other times he takes great pains to point out that individuals vary when that helps his argument more.

Overall, not worth the listen. The reactionary tone leads to poor conclusions, and at this point the data is so outdated it's not worth cluttering your mind.

Solid Review Thru a Left Wing Lens

1. Simon Prebble reads this book at breakneck speed. This would be fine for for a thriller but for a fairly technical book on evolutionary science and genetics, it was too fast. I had to turn the speed down to 90%.
2. In all fairness, this was written in 1993 and many of the more recent studies documenting differences across races had not yet been discovered. The author sticks to a safe left wing view that racial differences can emerge in every other part of human physiognomy except the brain and behavior (!)
3. A few times he uses the scientific findings he reviews to suggest public policy recommendations. Every single time he supports left wing big government solutions. This is not science, it is partisan. No terrible, just funny when scientific types try to be objective.
4. Great book, stellar for 1993.

Phenomenal

I absolutely love this book. Frankly the narrator is the best I've ever heard as well. It's jam-packed with information and references while simultaneously thoroughly entertaining. If you have any curiosity about sociobiology, read this book.

Relevant information with skeptical insights

I agree with some of the assertions in this book. It is a good exploration into the biological implications of evolution on Sex and sexuality. However, some of the conclusions seem to confirm already conceived assertions. One can find 'evidence'to back almost anything, and yes scientific evidence is not immune. In one breath the author concludes that nature and nurture affect the individual, and yet the author does not seem to exptend the same line of reasoning to how nature and nurture can affect a group that occupies the same area. For example, he says it is patronizing to say women do not enter politics because they have been conditioned to think of it as a space for men ( paraphrasing) .He goes on to say politics is about "status seeking ambition that women have a healthy cynicism about." Let us go along with this reasoning for a moment. Women marrying men in power, is that not status and power seeking using their nature in accordance to nurture( environment) in which they occupy? So is it not possible that the conditioning argument could be based on the historical trends that women had to ally themselves with powerful men in order to influence society indirectly since they had been deprived access and power? The author in the same page says that "women have their own minds" ( slaves also had their own minds and yet were not free to choose what they wanted to do), when there is no liberty what does one do? In another line the author says "women could enter politics if they want to , whatever society says" Is this a denial of the suffrage movement? I was not sure while reading, and I am still not certain after contemplation. Why was there a movement in the western hemisphere if women could just decide? What about the women in parts of asia, are those women just biologically disposed to communism? There is a lot one can add to the list inequitable practices one can willfully deny when one chooses to prove an assumption which in itself satisfies our sense of " That how things are," whenever we seek to fill the gaps of our ignorance. One must be acutely aware and careful of the possibility of making associations and calling them causes after observing effects that have too many angles yet unknown to us.

Thrilled

At the risk of geeking out, I absolutely love this book. The comfort and ease with which the author discusses sex and evolution is fantastic on its own, but that he easily makes the subject interesting is comparable only to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, minus the sensationalism. Admittedly, Ridley is preaching to the choir with me, but I was still able to learn and enjoy the information conveyed.

Simon Prebble did very well, narrating such a touchy subject. I never got bored.

I would (and have) highly recommend this book in any medium to: geeks, biology students and evolution-deniers.

Great explanation of sex and gender

What did you love best about The Red Queen?

Detailed explanation of the underlying drivers behind the evolutionary basis for sex and gender.

Any additional comments?

I am very interested in evolutionary theory and for me this book really hit the spot. Very detailed and interesting background on the basis for sex and gender in people and animals. Some might find this book somewhat offensive as it assumes both physical and mental differences between the sexes which goes against PC thinking but it is well justified and clearly explained.

A cacophony of information

Really interesting topics discussed and demystified.
I'm definitely not a biologist but found the concepts clearly outlined and broken down into digestible chapters.

Enjoyed every Second of it

I'm not a biologist nor do I have the slightest education/knowledge in this area. The book was easy to understand and digest. It is so well researched and so well presented that even a layman would understand and enjoy it.