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Adam Richmond wrote: > Has anyone read Sex at Dawn or know of a decent review of this book? > Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality > Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. & Cacilda Jethá, M.D. Not a review, but an article I read on the book. It'll be available online from the 28th August. http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3665/features/15907/sex_at_dawn.html;jsessionid=FAF7EEF722DB2424414D11F3D0A91D0C I found the article interesting and there was a follow up article challenging it in the following issue. But neither struck me as particularly convincing. The article suggested that the book simply offers an alternative take on evolutionary psychology, "we actually evolved to be largely polygamous" rather than the standard "men evolved to be polygamous and women evolved to keep her man around". It cites a couple of obscure communities (the Chinese one people probably know about and a fascinating Amazonian case) to suggest that monogamy is not our "natural" state. The response, from a renowned primate scientist, said "dump the bonobo analogies", women having higher body fat ratios than men is sufficient evidence of sexual dimorphism to prove we're more like gorillas, hence semi-monogomous (dominant male, multiple largely faithful (through lack of opportunity perhaps?) female partners). The word pseudoscience kept coming to mind . . . Anyway, hopefully you might find the article interesting. Cheers, John ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
