Ever Since Adam And Eve, The Evolution Of Human Sexuality
by Malcolm Potts and Roger Short, Cambridge University Press l999;
333 pages.
"Even after death silicone [breast] implants are
inappropriate, since they leave a gooey mess in the crematorium..." from
page 158. This book is full of startling ideas which make sense when you stop
to think them over. Meanwhile you have looked at an unanticipated dimension of
reality. I am a physician with a hobby of evolutionary biology since high
school in the 1940's. In the year since I first read "Ever Since Adam and
Eve" I have seen no review of it except one in an obscure source.
The authors
were fellow students at Oxford University a generation ago where the plan to
write such a book as this originated. Malcolm Potts is an M.D., specialist in
human fertility, the first medical director of the International Planned
Parenthood Federation, and professor at the School of Public Health, University
of California at Berkeley. Roger Short is a veterinarian, an authority on
mammalian reproduction, and faculty member at the University of Melbourne,
Australia.
They state
"We are interested in exploring the evolutionary origins and development
of human sexuality for the very reason that we may want to modify some of the
behaviors." (p.130) In this endeavor
they have succeeded magnificently. Along the way they are very sympathetic to
women's rights: "Perhaps the noble
and necessary struggle for equality between the sexes is most likely to be won
when the differences between the sexes are also recognized." (p.234). But then again..."that there
are demonstrable behavioral differences between the two sexes is an unpopular
conclusion for feminist theories built on a political as opposed to a biological
foundation." (p.234)
And there are
some insights from anthropology:
1)"A good deal of nonsense has been written about preliterate
societies, such as American Indians, living in some sort of spiritual harmony
with the land. In reality the human animal has always exploited and destroyed
its environment." (p.203) 2)"Although most of human history has
been lived out in a materially egalitarian society, once technologies arise
that permit wealth to be garnered and to be distributed to kin, then
economically stratified societies invariably appear and develop their own
internal stability." (p.206)
3)"A double standard of sexual morality is the rule rather than the
exception in settled societies." (p.218)
Ever Since Adam
and Eve also contains much material which, although quite interesting, doesn't
fit the main strands. This is contained in side
bars. Finally, some vignettes of the
authors' felicity of expression:
"...may seek a martyr's death in the television coliseum of today's
world." (p.278) "In short,
team sports share some of the behaviors associated with chimpanzee and human
warfare, and they could be described as a form of masturbation to alleviate
military desires." (p.324)
Ever Since Adam
and Eve contains a very good index and bibliography. I am quite familiar with
several of the items in the bibliography and they are cited appropriately. In
short, this book is not only authoritative but also a good read, and deserves a
wide audience.
John A. Frantz, M.D.
Published in Free Inquiry, Summer, 2002
Chimpanzees
If the same amount of effort that is going into genetic analyses went into
chimpanzee conservation and behavioral biology, not only would we save this
species from extinction, but we would write the most detailed story of our
past—as rich as the Bible, but grounded
in science. Marc Hauser, Department
of Psychology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Biological Anthropology
of Harvard University (I didn’t make up the department name, JF)