How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction

by Robert Martin

Despite the widespread belief that natural is better when it comes to sex, pregnancy, and parenting, most of us have no idea what "natural" really means; the origins of our reproductive lives remain a mystery. Why are a quarter of a billion sperm cells needed to fertilize one egg? Are women really fertile for only a few days each month? How long should babies be breast-fed? In How We Do It, primatologist Robert Martin draws on forty years of research to locate the roots of everything from our sex cells to the way we care for newborns. He examines the procreative history of humans as well as that of our primate kin to reveal what's really natural when it comes to making and raising babies, and distinguish which behaviors we ought to continue -- and which we should not. Although it's not realistic to raise our children like our ancestors did, Martin's investigation reveals surprising consequences of -- and suggests ways to improve upon -- the way we do things now. For instance, he explains why choosing a midwife rather than an obstetrician may have a greater impact than we think on our birthing experience, examines the advantages of breast-feeding for both mothers and babies, and suggests why babies may be ready for toilet training far earlier than is commonly practiced.How We Do It offers much-needed context for our reproductive and child-rearing practices, and shows that once we understand our evolutionary past, we can consider what worked, what didn't't, and what it all means for the future of our species.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Biology, History, Evolution, Sexuality, Anthropology

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 2013

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Danielle T]

Despite the cover, this book was less about the act of sex and more about pregnancy and early development. Robert Martin is a biological anthropologist and draws many parallels to primate studies. A good look at all aspects of reproduction besides the fun bits.

[Brianne S]

Picked up a copy of this book in the Field Museum gift shop after seeing a video in the Evolving Planet exhibit in which Robert Martin was featured. This book is extremely well written and is very easy to follow for readers without a scientific background. I learned so much that I didn't know before, this was a truly engaging book!

[christine.]

How We Do It deals extensively with all aspects of human reproduction - from the evolution of sex to caring for babies.

There are plenty of fascinating facts here, and I found it interesting, academic, and engaging throughout, but I was pretty disappointed at how much of the book focused on child care and child rearing, and less on human reproduction itself. There's nothing in here on the mechanics of desire, on sexuality, on preference and how the brain works in this regards.

The biggest surprise was that the book not once touched upon the pleasure and gratification of sex, which definitely has to have some influence on some of the data that the researchers are laying out in their studies.

There's also a tremendous amount of information here about our primate cousins, and how they do (and don't) relate to human reproduction. All fascinating stuff.

As for the "future" part of the title, there's not much here. There's maybe a page or two about humanity's outstanding population growth, but beyond that, we're not given a glimpse of what the future of human reproduction will hold.

A really informative read, but not the read I thought I was getting into when I first picked this book up.

[Atila Iamarino]

Ótimo conteúdo, diferente de tudo o que já li. Um complemento biológico/evolutivo para a perspectiva médica que normalmente impera no assunto. Gostei especialmente das comparações de período fértil, fecundação e amamentação com outros primatas. Muita coisa nova.

[Mary Keehan]

The cover and title are clickbait. This is a wonderfully detailed scientific examination of human reproduction. I felt pretty informed before reading but couldn't have been more wrong!

[Rachel Ginocchio]

I only recently discovered this book, and thought it was brilliant. Robert Martin uses 50+ years of research and experience as a biological anthropologist to guide readers through a detailed account of human creation, fetal development, and early childhood. He goes into fascinating, minute scientific details, draws analogies to our primate counterparts, and weaves social evolution into the narrative. My copy is filled with underlined sentences, starred paragraphs, and scribbled notes in the margin. It's a book I continue to go back to, when I'm needing to know exact stats or fascinating facts.

[Sara Pozo]

Una revisión imprescindible de lo conocido en biología sexual humana. Como dice el autor, sorprendentemente poco. Especialmente sobre sexualidad femenina y de cómo el cuerpo de la mujer selecciona el espermatozoide perfecto... Ni se sabe, ni parece importarle al grueso de los investigadores hombres, cuyo objetivo hasta el momento, según desvela Martin ha sido primar la cantidad de embarazos frente a la salud de los bebés. De la salud de las madres ni hay datos.

Muy recomendable si eres friki de la evolución humana.

[Addison Alley]

As a reproductive endocrinologist, I was really excited for this book. While the evolutionary biology and primate studies are excellent and fascinating, unfortunately the obstetric and human fertility discussions near the end frequently has old data, incorrect focuses, or inaccurate information. And this may just be me, but the use of the word womb exclusively instead of uterus started to grate on me. Not a bad read, but frustrating in parts.

[Islomjon]

Robert Martin in his book spanned his entire career, yet has produced quite interesting and reader-friendly book. Throughout the book author examines popular facts in human reproduction and most interesting gives an opinion from several angles and sometimes opposes his views unbiasedly. However, by time book becomes a little bit uniformly uninteresting, but still readeble.

[Daria]

It was overall a fascinating book and I've learned a lot about the topics explored there. But I don't think it was originally written for a wider audience and it feels a bit too technical and insufficiently adapted for a nonfiction reader.

[Melina]

This was a very interesting read. I enjoyed it.

[Regulus]

надо быть очень зоологом, чтобы читать все, не пролистывая, но даже если интересоваться только частью - довольно полезное чтиво

[Krishnan]

excellent book on biological anthropology

[Chelsea]

I did not finish this book. The first chapter was really interesting and then it got into way too much detail about the history of this and that and the comparison between animals, including humans. I know, I know, the title says "The Evolution and Future" so I should expect some history but it just felt drawn out. Too many references to too many monkeys.

This book suffers from "Need to be 300 pages or more" syndrome when it could have offered a very succinct look at human reproduction, past, present, future. Interesting topic that just did not hit the right tone with me.

[Michelle]

I wanted to pick up something non-fiction, and something about sex seemed cool enough! It was okay. I skipped over a lot of it. The author goes through a literature review of basically all these studies about human sexual reproduction, but also mostly talks about primate studies in general, without a real connection to how humans work. So -- if you're interested in that kind of thing, but otherwise skip it.

[Shana]

There was so much interesting information packed into this book that I might hold onto it for a little while. Robert Martin has mastered the method of presenting complex ideas so that they are easy to understand. An unexpected part of the joy of reading this was that the author had such a wonderful sense of humor that showed in his writing style.

[Ordlas]

Extremely interesting and well-written. The chapters on breastfeeding and baby care might be tough for pregnant women and new moms but all in all, this book was very informative, especially in terms of primate evolution.

[Ana]

This is not a book about sexy times, but about explaining the effect evolution has had on human conception and baby care. This book is science for the everyday reader, easily readable and informative. Biology for the win!

[Delta]

I could not put the book down! It was so full of interesting facts and statistics. I never felt that Martin was drawing unfounded conclusions or pushing any agenda. I spent several days telling everyone all these fascinating facts that I learned from the book. It was just so good.

[Luara Haskin]

Interesting read, but very dry. He doesn't explain a lot of the evolution principles, so I was glad to have my Bio background.

[John]

"It" refers to conceiving, birthing, and raising infants. Very interesting, but pretty dry.

[Jie]

Did you know that most primate mothers eat their infants' feces to keep the nest clean? And heating the testes for 30 minutes a day can serve as a form of birth control? Wonderful book.

[Moises]

Stopped reading. Too pedantic, although highly informative.

[Emannuel Rojas]

Read if you're like me and can't comprehend why before modern society existed wild humans needed to spend 12 years stuck to their mothers before they could hunt and fend off for themeselves.

[Rui]

Fantastic book about the evolution of human reproduction

[Clint]

An in-depth look at procreation from an evolutionary standpoint. How do we produce babies relative to other primates and mammals.