Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex And The Selfish Gene

Over the last thirty years, many scientists have come to insist that our behaviour is governed by our genes - above all when it comes to sex, which, we are told, is how genes perpetuate themselves. Not so, argues evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge in this powerful book. Sex certainly seems to us more complicated than a matter of our DNA struggling to survive, and that’s because it is. Eldredge directly confronts those who would cast us as puppets of biological imperatives rooted deep in our hunter-gatherer past. In humans, there is an intricate interplay between meeting our needs for day-to-day survival, sex, and reproduction (“the human triangle”) - further complicated by cultural forces (customs, laws) that routinely override selfish-gene behaviour. Authoritative and delightfully combative, 'Why We Do It' challenges us to rethink the assumptions of today’s science in the important task of understanding ourselves.