Darwin's Wager: Cannibal Genes, the Human Ape, and Evolution's Final Battle

by James B. Miles

When the father of gene-centred evolutionary biology, George C. Williams, asked the world’s largest university press to publish a popular-level exposé of Darwin’s wager, he was told the idea was far too radical to put in front of the reading public.

Because Darwin wagered in 1871 that humankind is born just another cannibalistic great ape, and that it falls on culture, not biology, to civilise us. Darwin’s wager explains mathematically the enormous power of culture, yet that only by acknowledging this can societies become moral and just. Though many, including the United States, may well never get there.

Darwin’s wager has been buried, suppressed, for a century and a half. Darwin couldn’t get the idea out, and the giants of modern evolutionary biology couldn’t get the idea out. So on this 150th anniversary we will fight Darwin’s final battle for him.

432 pages, Paperback

Published January 28, 2021

About the author

James B. Miles is a leading writer on the moral implications of the free will conceit and has been published across philosophy, social science and natural science journals.

Reviews

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

This nonfiction chapter sample was hard to get through. It read a lot like an accredited college research paper, instead of the beginnings of a book. I was expecting some general information about this part of Darwin’s theories on Natural selection and how they related to the human’s and cannibalism. Instead, I felt like I was being crushed under all the information that was being thrown at me and it was only the first portion of the book. It also kept branching off from subject matter to subject matter, that I would get so lost about which topic we started off with. The writing was very argumentative and chaotic.
I received this ebook, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

[Becs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I get what James B. Miles is hoping to achieve with this book. I think the purpose was really to get us to start challenging our entitled mindset that we, as humans, are more than our ancestors of a more primitive nature. I think we were supposed to be humbled by this book, by Darwin's unfinished proposals, and to take a step back and accept that we may be more primitive and built upon such primitive values than we, in our pride and percieved success, would prefer to admit.

That part I like. I think it's interesting and hasn't really been challenged that much before, and certainly not with evidence to support it.

But, this is not an easy book to read. It is a real slog to work out what the author is getting at, a lot of the time. And the writing really feels more like an outdated textbook that needs some help, rather than a readable paperback you'd happily relax with at home for the pleasure, rather than necessity, of learning.

I like the idea, not so sure about the execution.

ARC provided from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Aline Mello · Rating 2 out of 5]

In general I find this book quite confusing. It was hard to focus and understand what the author mean. I believe the subject approached in this book is interesting but not well explored. I am a biologist myself and I though this would be a relaxing reading, but that was not how I felt. This is a sample just of the first chapter, but I wanted to gave up on reading it even before the end of the first chapter.