The Red Queen
by Josh Staiger
Yesterday I finished reading The Red Queen by Matt Ridley and I have to say that this is one of the most insightful books that I've read in a long time. As the book's subtitle states, it candidly discusses sex and the evolution of human nature.
I've been looking for a book that addresses this topic for a long time, and although others (most notably Carl Sagan's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) have done so somewhat indirectly by pointing out man's relation to other species of animals, this is the first book to focus squarely on how sexual reproduction and natural selection have shaped the physical and instinctual drives common to all human beings.
Under natural selection, species are shaped by their ability to reproduce and leave descendents. Organisms that are better able to reproduce will survive, while those that are worse will die out. Human beings are obviously a product of natural selection, so it naturally follows that any and all adaptations that we have accumulated over the past few million years have the ultimate goal of making us better at making babies. This line of reasoning has been obvious to me for quite some time, and yet Ridley is the first to tackle it in a popular medium, with this book.
Ridley examines what he defines to be Human Nature in this context, and his findings, though not all conclusive, are incredibly fascinating. He tackles topics ranging from why sex evolved at all, to why we have two genders, to why guys are attracted to pretty faces and large breasts while girls are more attracted to BMWs and Rolexes, to human beings' drive toward polygamy, monogamy, adultery, and our resulting social structures, and even to why we have evolved high intelligence (including art, and music) at all.
The book also clearly corroborates Ladder Theory as well :). I highly recommend you pick it up.