The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Why do we have sex? One of the main biological reasons, contends Ridley, is to combat disease. By constantly combining and recombining genes every generation, people "keep their genes one step ahead of their parasites," thereby strengthening resistance to bacteria and viruses that cause deadly diseases or epidemics. Called the "Red Queen Theory" by biologists after the chess piece in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass which runs but stays in the same place, this hypothesis is just one of the controversial ideas put forth in this witty, elegantly written inquiry. Ridley, a London-based science writer and a former editor of the Economist , argues that men are polygamous for the obvious reason that whichever gender has to spend the most time and energy creating and rearing offspring tends to avoid extra mating. Women, though far less interested in multiple partners, will commit adultery if stuck with a mediocre mate. In Ridley's not wholly convincing conclusion, even human intellect is chalked up to sex: virtuosity, individuality, inventiveness and related traits are what make people sexually attractive. Photos. BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is a fascinating book filled with lucid prose and seductive reasoning. Freelance science writer Ridley reaches into the literature of genetics; molecular, theoretical and evolutionary biology; ecology; sociology; and anthropology to weave an extraordinary tale of the evolution of human nature, beginning with the evolution of sex. Using Lewis Carroll's Red Queen (who runs as fast as she can to stay in the same place) as a metaphor for evolution, Ridley shows how sex was the result of an evolutionary arms race between hosts and their disease-causing parasites. Ridley covers so much ground that transitions may be abrupt or unclear, particularly in the last two chapters; also, his review of human homosexuality is thin. His occasionally pompous style (including his immediate dismissal of those who do not believe in evolution) may offend some readers. However, Ridley clearly explains many complex and remarkable concepts for a wide audience. Highly recommended.
- Constance Rinaldo, Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, N.H.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140245480
• ISBN-13: 978-0140245486
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,007 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth About Sex, March 29, 2006

By	The Spinozanator (Waco, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature (Paperback)

I read the celebrated "Moral Animal" some 10 years ago, re-read it and underlined it at least twice. Finally I had found a theory of human nature and psychology I could wholeheartedly believe in. Ten years later, I have now found "Red Queen" - more of the same, but specialized particularly in the huge role sexual selection played during our evolutionary history.

Experienced scientist and science journalist Matt Ridley compiled these findings of evolutionary psychology (EP) for the lay reader in 1993 - and "Red Queen" is still a timely treatise. Disclaimer: For those who are offended by the very suggestion that our behavior evolved from a pre-ape ancestor - and that our behavior is an elaborate, sophisticated manifestation of language and socialization which evolved by natural selection along with a huge brain - you won't like this book.

I realize the following assessments of mine are anecdotal, but here goes: I have seen how men and women preen, peacock-like, showing off their best (?) sides during courtships, and how they pair off in society according to commonly accepted determinants of status, differing depending on sex. I have seen how the competitive, power-seeking behavior of men is drastically tempered by marriage. I have seen how married men who are careful in all other endeavors will take uncharacteristic risks for a sexual fling. I have observed how women tend to choose (in a mate) financial success and stability over looks (if they have to choose), whereas men tend to choose beauty over all else. I have seen how men and women differ in their outlooks: Men (generally) want to be practical, shrewd, assertive, dominating, competitive, critical, and self-controlled. Women (usually) want to be loving, affectionate, impulsive, sympathetic, and generous. One in three men said they had fantasized about having sex with more than a thousand women in their lives. Women overwhelmingly fantasize about having sex with a familiar partner. I have read about and subsequently observed how people (unconsciously?) score each other during their social interactions, rating relationship values for the future. Finally, game theory concepts are widely known to be utilized by humans in sexual and social interactions. All these concepts are predicted by EP. I could go on with other examples, but in short, I'm a sucker for EP.

Recently, I have read about resistance in university humanities departments to EP - humans being so special and all. We are - in the sense that our intelligence has given us free reign over our world - but humans are still very imperfect. We are poorly designed in many ways (backs, knees, tendency to war, self-delusion) - exactly what one would expect from evolution. Cockroaches or certain scorpions, which can live without food and water for almost a year, are also impressive. There is every reason to believe that our (at times) unethical sexual behavior as well as our superior intelligence evolved in just as Rube-Goldberg a fashion as did our (very complicated and redundant) blood clotting mechanism.

Anyway, this book is superb. I will close, since I could end up nattering on for more pages than most would want to read. Consider moving "Red Queen" closer to the top of your TBR list. A Best Buy.

96 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dramatic and surprising, September 30, 2000

By	Catpeople "catpeople" (Aguascalientes, Mexico) - See all my reviews

"Men and women have different minds - says Matt Ridley in one of the central chapters of his book-. The differences are the direct result of evolution. Women's minds (and bodies, as he states in a previous pharagraph) evolved to suit the demands of beraring and rearing children and of gathering plant and food. Men's minds (and bodies) evolved to suit the demands of rising in a male hierarchy, fighting over women and providing meat to a family".

To arrive to this and other conclusions, Ridley goes a long and difficult way through biology, genetics and continents, starting with a basic question: why is there sex at all? After all, many species reproduce without it. The first three or four chapters of "The Red Queen" may be a little onerous, but apparently they are necessary to support the last ones.

This is a book about evolution with a focus on human sexuality and the human mind. Everything on humans - our bodies, our behavior towards the opposite sex, even our minds and social rules - is a direct result of a process called sexual selection that allows the reproduction of the fittest, therefore transmiting their genes to the next generations.

When answering why there is sex at all and how men and women's bodies and minds evolved in the last million years, we come to many uncomfortable truths about adultery, rape, incest and life. Why do more rich men marry beautiful women and not the other way around? Why have the attempts to sell pornogrphy to women and romantic novels to men failed? And above all this: why did evolution produce different minds in men a women?

Take all of the above and pack it with a red cover, and you have one of the most amazing readings of the year.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of Evolutionary Psychology, January 25, 2001

By	E. Gartman (Rockville, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Matt Ridley's Red Queen is both a terrific introduction into the burgeoning field of evolutionary psycholgy and a scientific explanation for why the sexes differ. Ridley's book is based entirely off other scientists ideas, but his great contribution is to put them all together in a cohent and readable form. Ridley is a gifted writer with a knack for making the difficult accesible. But what makes this book so wonderful is its central thesis: That human gender differences are biological, stemming from divergent interests in the way males and females in the animal world seek to reproduce. While this has been well-established in other places, what is even more interesting is Ridley's examination of human reproductive strategies. Men seek beauty and youth in women, while women seek wealth and stablity in men. Every single assertion Ridley makes is backed up by a wealth of scientific date, ranging from experiments to human history and deductive logic. The scientific rigor of this book is impressive, and mostly irrefutalble. There are other implications of this book as well. The most obvious is that it destroys environmental explantions for male-female differences, and culturally constructed views of beauty. But the implications range far beyond that, to our very perception of gender roles in society, and how we should deal with them. Finally, this book is a great introduction into evolutionary pyschology, a new field that is improving by leaps and bounds every year. Evolutionary Pschologists continue to probe into human behavior, helping us understand the biological, and immutable, sources of the human condition. We can expect even more breakthroughs in the years to come, and I certainly hope Matt Ridley chooses to write another book explaining the newest thinking.