The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

by Matt Ridley

Human nature is a product of culture, but culture is also a product of human nature, and both are the products of evolution.

Sex is merely the dealer, generating unique hands from the same monotonous deck of genetic cards shared by the whole species.

males usually compete for access to females, rather than vice versa. There are good evolutionary reasons for this, and there are clear evolutionary consequences, too; for instance, men are more aggressive than women.

evolution is a treadmill, not a ladder.

sexual species were like groups of inventors pooling their resources. If one man invented a steam engine and another a railway, then the two could come together. Asexual ones behaved like groups of jealous inventors who never shared their knowledge, so that steam locomotives were used on roads and horses dragged carts along railways.

After all, human legs are the descendants of fishes’ fins, but they are designed nowadays for walking, not swimming.