Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness

by Joan Roughgarden

Are selfishness and individuality―rather than kindness and cooperation―basic to biological nature? Does a "selfish gene" create universal sexual conflict? In The Genial Gene, Joan Roughgarden forcefully rejects these and other ideas that have come to dominate the study of animal evolution. Building on her brilliant and innovative 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.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Evolution, Biology, Audiobook

266 pages, Hardcover

First published March 21, 2009

About the author

American ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii and Stanford University. She is well known for her theoretical and field work in community ecology and her critical studies on Charles Darwin's theory of sexual selection.

She is the author of 8 non-fiction books, over 180 scientific articles & the upcoming SciFi novel Ram-2050 a futuristic retelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana.

She received a Bachelor of Science in biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from University of Rochester in 1968 and later a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University in 1971.

Awards and honors:
-Stonewall Book Award, 2005
-Dinkelspiel Award for Undergraduate Teaching, Stanford University, in 1995
-Visiting Research Fellow at the Merton College, University of Oxford, in 1994
-Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1993
-Fellow of Guggenheim Foundation in 1985
-University Fellow, Stanford University in 1978

Reviews

[Kimik Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My background is in plant biology and microscopy so I really enjoyed this thoroughly researched book. Roughgarden does a commendable job exploring the issues with research that tries to support sexual selection vs cooperative selection. I did listen to the audiobook version so many of the mathematical explanations went a bit over my head given that I need to see such things in graphical form to better understand them. It was really great to see how Roughgarden promoted her own students'research throughout the book.

[Mike Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very technical book on evolutionary biology. It focuses on a new theory for the evolution of sexual reproduction (as opposed to asexual reproduction) and the differences in behaviour seen in males and females. The author spends a great deal of time comparing her theory to the prevailing theory, which is that males compete with each other through showy displays like the peacock's tail or outright combat like bighorn sheep to win a chance to mate with females. She believes that sexual behaviour is about cooperation, not competition, with the goal being to raise the greatest number of young, rather than to have the most mating encounters. I found that author Roughgarden has a real chip on her shoulder. She feels marginalized and ignored by the mainstream scientists in her field. That bitterness comes through in this book, although she claims to be above such petty, competitive behaviour. When she does focus on the topic, she has some interesting ideas. She points out that sexual reproduction based on two distinct genders is not as universal as we think and raises some good reasons why cooperation may actually play a role in sexual behaviour. The book is tough going, though, introducing game theory as a framework to explain different potential behaviours. This is really for the die-hard followers of the subject.

[Jacob Libby · Rating 3 out of 5]

An honest telling of Roughgarden's heterodox contributions to evolutionary biology. The Genial Gene gives its reader a tour of Roughgarden's professional work, which has centered around developing alternative hypotheses that challenge what some philosophers have questioned to be the chauvinist cultural bias of canonical evolutionary biology. She questions assumptions of primordial conflict and universal sexual characteristics, and creates a way of talking about evolution that foregrounds locally emergent characteristics, sexually diverse behavior in the animal world, and the many seemingly cooperative forms that arise over evolutionary time.

Unfortunately, the work is marred by a number of glaring flaws, in both literary and scientific domains. While the text purports to remain at the level of theoretical and empirical inquiry, it mixes in facile moralistic allusions and unexplored sociological critique while refusing to reference these directly. While it manages to present new ideas with alacrity and detail, it poses these against an oversimplified presentation of earlier texts and theory that is ungenerous, incomplete, and at points so inaccurate as to raise serious suspicions with regard to the author's good will and intent.

Roughgarden also avoids the difficulties in recognizing the weaknesses in her own arguments. In one section Roughgarden inserts into her evolutionary model a "behavioral tier" that allows animals to develop cooperative behavior through foresight and negotiation, seemingly sneaking in a form of foresight or teleology without explaining how it itself could evolve. In another section, she designs a mathematical model in such a way as to implicitly endorse a group level selection dynamic without explicitly admitting this or exploring how it might have initially developed.

Nevertheless, in certain categories, novel ideas and paradigm shifting ways of looking at evolution make the slog worth the effort. Examples include 1) interesting explanations regarding the economic monogamy and distributed networks of childcare and sexual reproduction in nesting birds; 2) more abstract concepts that more elegantly accommodate the wide variety of social arrangements for reproductive and parental behavior in animals including multiple genders, reproductive groups, non-reproductive sex, and homosexuality sex; and 3) paradigm shifting evidence suggesting that sex characteristics might best be thought as locally emergent at multiple points within the tree of life, and not directly manifesting the numerical dynamics of sperm and egg.

Overall, a thought-provoking and stimulating challenge to the field that will change how you think about evolution, even if you disagree with Roughgarden's every thesis.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thought-provoking book well ahead of its time. This, or something like this, is what we’ll be using to tackle the many “exceptions” to sexual selection narratives Roughgarden includes here and in Evolution’s Rainbow 10 years from now. If we are not still ideologically captured. There are many systems — plants and fungi especially, and symbioses — where such an approach seems to me to be the only sensible one.

Sexual selection is, effectively, a special case of social selection, as it should be. Social selection is widening the sets of strategies and outcomes under investigation. Really think about the weak or uninspiring applications of natural and sexual selection where something like this would have been better. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

It’s also an encouraging read if you’ve felt the sneer within Trivers, Coyne, later Dawkins, et al.

[César MM · Rating 2 out of 5]

La autora abre un melón, cuestionando tanto la idea del individualismo con el que se interpreta la evolución como el rol de la selección sexual. Y en general su punto de vista me parece necesario e importante. Pero el libro se me ha hecho repetitivo; muy denso y técnico a veces para ser un texto de divulgación; y he echado mucho de menos ilustraciones que ayudaran a seguir el texto. Conclusión: 10 en la idea, pero insuficiente en como darla a conocer.

[Marijo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the book, but at times the author seems to confuse what happens at the level of the gene and at the level of the individual. She sounds as if she is trying to dispel the idea that genes are "selfish" by focusing mainly on behaviors at the level of individuals and populations. Still, I like the book and it raises many good points that should be addressed.

[Andrew]

Cited in Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue.

[T. Strange · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing.

I read Roughgarden's other book, Evolution's Rainbow, a few months ago and absolutely loved it. I was very excited to read her second book.

The writing is a strange mix of very technical, scientific, and formal, with extremely informal phrases thrown in. There is a lot of repetition.

It also seems that this book wasn't proofread at all. There were many, many spelling mistakes, inconsistencies of how words were spelled, and other typographical errors. Words were left out of or added to sentences. It was very distracting and almost irritating enough to make me want to stop reading altogether.

I was definitely counting pages as I struggled to finish.

[Jeannette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good that this tells the story of the nice side of our humanity due what the author calls - the "genial gene". But the book is often a rebuttal, diatribe or negative stance in opposition to the "selfish gene" idea of Dawkins who was being pretty extremist about the selfish bit. Without cooperation cells would have never got organized into organisms as complicated as what is on our planet. Worth reading.

[Tadas Talaikis · Rating 1 out of 5]

WTF that was? Cooperative teamwork. Between trees? Or cats? Probably it's hard not to believe in some agency model (unseen force of "cooperative teamwork" in this case), but let's be real, no one wants to cooperatively "teamwork" with homeless. It's just simple economics, no agency needed.

Or put in other words, why then you (we) like non-cooperative individuals?

My female weed broke up with male weed, dropped it off.

[Rodrigo Rahmeier]

Brillant!