Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution [Hardcover]

Alison Jolly (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674000692 | ISBN-13: 978-0674000698 | Publication Date: November 29, 1999 | Edition: 1

Alison Jolly believes that biologists have an important story to tell about being human--not the all-too-familiar tale of selfishness, competition, and biology as destiny but rather one of cooperation and interdependence, from the first merging of molecules to the rise of a species inextricably linked by language, culture, and group living. This is the story that unfolds in Lucy's Legacy, the saga of human evolution as told by a world-renowned primatologist who works among the female-dominant ringtailed lemurs of Madagascar.

We cannot be certain that Lucy was female--the bones themselves do not tell us. However, we do know, as Jolly points out in this erudite, funny, and informative book, that the females who came after Lucy--more adept than their males in verbal facility, sharing food, forging links between generations, migrating among places and groups, and devising creative mating strategies--played as crucial a role in the human evolutionary process as "man" ever did. In a book that takes us from the first cell to global society, Jolly shows us that to learn where we came from and where we go next, we need to understand how sex and intelligence, cooperation and love, emerged from the harsh Darwinian struggle in the past, and how these natural powers may continue to evolve in the future.

(20001201)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Princeton primatologist Jolly brings good news from prehistory and delivers it with style. Neither evolutionary theory nor sociobiology, as popularly understood, flatter humanity. Evolution paints a grim picture of survival of the fittest, and sociobiology has more than a few sexist implications. Jolly argues that human development is not the story of battle after battle to determine survival of the fittest. Instead, she portrays evolution as a story of ever-increasing cooperation. Not that she doesn't take into account the myriad ways in which nature, including human nature, is red in tooth and claw. She does, but she also insists that "[t]he fascination of sociobology is not [in the] repugnant actions that it can explain," but "in understanding how loving families and supportive communities could grow from such unpromising ground." Jolly considers neo-Darwinian explanations of human feelings and decisions, from white lies to charitable giving to abortions. As she moves from discussions of human culture (from sex-testing of female Olympic athletes to Freud's ideas about sexual development) to her own research among the lemurs of Madagascar, Jolly proves an illuminating guide to the complex intersection of nature and nurture. In the second half of the book, she first examines different primate societies before moving on to a discussion of how human individuals and communities develop, including the evolution of gender, tool use, abstraction, imagination and cooperation. In this accessible, comprehensive and thought-provoking work, Jolly also adduces surprising texts from the humanities, among them poems in translation from French, Chinese and Yoruba. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Those who study human evolution put forth many different theories concerning the qualities that distinguish humans from other species and have made our enormous impact on Earth possible. Recently, Ian Tattersall's Becoming Human: Evolution and Human Uniqueness (LJ 2/1/98) summed up many of these theories, emphasizing symbolic thought, art, and innovation. Jolly, an eminent primatologist, suggests that enhanced cooperation, social behavior, and the division of labor also have played significant roles. Unlike Tattersall, Jolly is sympathetic to a sociobiological approach, which emphasizes the role of evolution-influenced instinct as both an asset and a problem for our species; she provides many interesting insights based on her knowledge of primate intelligence and behavior. She also discusses some interesting fossil evidence of paleontology, muses over the views of various factions on human evolution, and speculates on the future of our species and of our planet. An interesting, well-written, and well-documented book, this would be an asset to public and academic libraries.AMarit MacArthur, Auraria Lib., Denver
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1 edition (November 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674000692
• ISBN-13: 978-0674000698
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #551,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent overview of human evolution, January 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution (Hardcover)

"Lucy's Legacy" is an impressive book. If you've an interest in how much we've learned about where homo sapiens came from, read it. I'm giving it 4 stars because Jolly does such a great job of providing an overview, starting the beginning of life on earth. I'm not aware of anything in the field with the range of "Lucy's Legacy". Clear writing and a wonderful sense of humor make it easy to read. It's not getting the fifth star because coverage is a bit skimpy in places and because of the comments noted below.

If you keep the idea in the back of your head that most of what she writes about is fairly recently discovered while you read "Lucy's Legacy", you can't help but be amazed at the pace with which we're beginning to understand ourselves, even though Jolly doesn't make a big thing of it. Of course she also makes it clear that we don't know far more than we do.

And, oh yes, she makes a very good point that it's possible for selfish behavior at the level of genes to result in altruistic behavior by animals.

I do have a few criticisms, though they shouldn't discourage anyone from reading the book. They stem mostly from an attempt to do too much in under 450 pages, but her biases and areas of expertise undoubtedly play a role. Here are some samples.

First, the bibliography is mostly adequate, but there's too much to cover in one book and it would have been very useful to have pointers to books to go to for further reading in specific areas.

Second, important references are missing. Jolly cites work discussed in the excellent Walker/Shipman "Wisdom of the Bones", but fails to include that book. Similarly, she describes Roger Fouts' work with chimps and the personal problems he encountered because of his love for the animals but fails to cite his "Next of Kin. And, amazingly, the discussion of language and linguistics is done without a mention of Noam Chomsky.

Third, it's cruel to tell us that DNA's very efficient without explaining how efficiency is being measured.

Fourth, though she describes positions on two sides of the sociobiology wars, Jolly's not really fair to what I'll call the Gould camp. It's not, for example, intellectually honest to dismiss Gould's objections on the grounds that we're "programmed to deeply distrust - or even detest - the theory of sociobiology." It's also a jump from quoting Gould and Lewontin as saying theories like it "provided an important basis for the enactment of sterilization laws and restrictive immigration laws by the United States between 1910 and 1930 and also for the eugenics policies which let to the establishment of gas chambers in Nazi Germany" to her claim they were asserting that "proposing biological bases for human behavior leads straight to justifying the gas chambers." Gould wrote what I think was his best book, "The Mismeasure of Man", about the sordid history of testing for intelligence and how theories that came out of such efforts have been used to justify political positions. Unfortunately it's not cited (I'd have worked Carol Travis' "Mismeasure of Woman" into the discussion too, because we routinely see newspaper articles about how some newly discovered small physiological difference between the sexes explains behavioral differences).

Despite those objections - as you may have guessed, I do have serious reservations regarding the perspective from which Jolly views the subject - it was a great read. I imagine she's a wonderful teacher and that it's even more delightful to take her classes. I know I'd be thrilled to talk with her about the contents of her book.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent introduction into human evolution, April 20, 2000

By 

Peter E. Harrell - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution (Hardcover)

Although I originally read this book for Professor Jolly's class, I have since recommended it to friends and family as an excellent, well rounded introduction into human evolution. It tries to examine, in an objective way, the degree to which natural selection has affected both physical and psychological human attributes.

Unlike writers such as EO Wilson who seem to argue that science has little if anything to learn from the humanities, Jolly believes that a comprehensive theory of human nature needs to draw on both the sciences and humanities to arrive at a synthetic view. I agree with her view that we cannot reduce humans to their genes, but nor can we ignore the role they play in our behavior.

The book is quite well written, and draws liberally on poetry, short stories, and politics as well as science to illustrate her points.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scentmarks on The Other Side of the Tree, February 12, 2000

By 

Dale Peterson (Arlington, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution (Hardcover)

This is an engaging and comprehensive introduction to where primate studies have taken us in the last half century, with a fine elucidation of sociobiology as a theoretical tool. Alison Jolly, a pioneering lemur watcher (as well as Lecturer in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University and Past President of the International Primatological Society) is particularly attuned to the needs and weaknesses of students and scholars "on the other side of the tree": in the humanities. She poses questions that only someone trained in the biological sciences would (or should) be bold enough to consider seriously, such as--Why sex? Why gender? What is intelligence? Where did it come from? Where is it going? And she considers possible answers clearly and thoroughly and gracefully enough for anyone to appreciate. One's knowledge of the human condition can only be deepened by following this exploration into the history before history.