Was Darwin Wrong? Peacocks and Sexual Selection
Books Inc - Books Inc.
Joan Roughgarden, Professor of Biology at Stanford University, will discuss her new book, The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness. Building on her book Evolution's Rainbow, "in which she challenged accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation," Roughgarden upends the notion of the selfish gene and the theory of sexual selection and develops a compelling and controversial alternative theory called social selection. This scientifically rigorous, model-based challenge to an important tenet of neo-Darwinian theory emphasizes cooperation, elucidates the factors that contribute to evolutionary success in a gene pool or animal social system, and vigorously demonstrates that to identify Darwinism with selfishness and individuality misrepresents the facts of life as we now know them.
