Customer Comments:
 Great subject matter, though difficult to read at first December 2, 2005
1 out of 1 found this comment useful.
When I first got this book, it was very difficult for me to get through the first couple of chapters, which are very technical and deal with the most fundamental question of how organisms and sex emerged. So I skipped ahead a few chapters and started reading about the more specific human behaviors, much easier to digest.
These days, I actually enjoy the first part of the book more. I went back and re-read his discussion of pre-historic times, and surprisingly that part is much more authoritative than his observations of contemporary human mating (which are better summarized by other scientists).
 Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex, and Weren't Afraid September 1, 2005
6 out of 10 found this comment useful.
No, this book is not about a communist homosexual, at least not exactly. It's about the influences of evolution on evolving understanding of a scientific human nature, especially how sexual differences evolved in various species. Surprisingly, 45% of Americans still disbelieve evolution, despite the theory and facts being supported by an overwhelming preponderance of evidence. This book, the author admits, will be of no interest to them.
To everyone else, this book is a large window onto how evolution helps form a new, scientific understanding of human nature. It's the thesis of the book. "This book is an inquiry into the nature of that human nature. Its theme is that it is impossible to understand human nature without understanding how it evolved, and it is impossible to understand how it evolved without understanding how human sexuality evolved. For the central theme of our evolution has been sexual" (p. 4).
The author himself best summarizes the first-half of the book: "Human beings are a product of evolution as much as any slime mold [and myriads of other plants and animals], and the evolution of the last two decades in the way scientists now think about evolution has immense implications for mankind as well. . . .evolution is most about reproduction of the fittest than survival of the fittest [the latter is not Darwin's, but Spencer's, coinage]; every creature on earth is the product of a series of historical battles between parasites and hosts, between genes and other genes, between members of the same species, between members of one gender in competition for members of the other gender. Those battles include psychological ones to manipulate and exploit other members of the species; they are never won, for success in one generation only ensures that the foes of the next generation are fitter to fight harder. Life is a Sisyphean race, run faster toward a finish line that is merely the start of another race" (p. 174). Most of these features involve non-humans as a way of understanding all of biological nature, not just human nature.
The second-half is almost entirely devoted to humans, and it is certainly the most interesting and compelling. Some readers may get a little impatient with several of the earlier chapters dealing with microorganisms and ethology, but many of the necessary and salient points to be inferred and observed in human nature depend on this analysis. My strong suggestion is to persevere. You'll be richly rewarded.
So what is a "Red Queen?" It's the theory of adaptation, or more specifically the adaptation of mutation to mutation that runs throughout all of life like a treadmill more than a like stair-climber. No sooner does A adapt to its environment, then B itself must adapt to A. In order for A to survive, it must evolve to A' and thus B must then evolve to B', and so on and so on, in an endless mode of adaptationism. It is precisely this theme that permeates all of this very interesting and provocative book. Highly recommended.
Amazing book - in the behavioral terms August 29, 2005
3 out of 4 found this comment useful.
Well if you are in your quest for understanding human nature and behavior, this is the right book!
It is a technical and yet not boring. And it does answer a lot of very deep and interesting questions, while mention the other school of tough to let you know of other person opinion.
If you are as much as I in learning of human behavior you must read this book. Also read the Evolution of desire from David Buss which is even more oriented toward the human mating strategies.
But be aware that those books are raising and answering questions that could check some of your core beliefs like it happen for me. When you start analising feeling like love and reproduction, they are ideas that are hard and disturbing to contemplate but it does not make them less true.
 The Red Queen: Helpful Overview of Sexual Selection August 24, 2005
4 out of 5 found this comment useful.
Matt Ridley's book, The Red Queen, is a useful tool for both beginners interested in the ideas of evolution and sexual selection and experts who would like to get an overview of the research and the scholarly debates surrounding evolution. While Ridley's book is more of a review of historical and contemporary research, the prose is quite good and effortlessly guides the reader through what can often be the convoluted and esoteric language of biological, ecological, and genetic studies.
Comprehensive August 12, 2005
6 out of 7 found this comment useful.
Red Queen single-handedly lists, analyzes and conjectures on the evolutionary ideas that are used for explanation of the many phenomena related to sex. Why sex exists at all? Why two sexes? Why the ornaments? How do these apply to the behavior and life of human species? Matt Ridley tries not to skip even the most far-fetched ideas, elaborates on each and does not necessarily take a position or reach a conclusion in each case. In my view, this becomes both the strength and weakness of the book: It is very comprehensive, it is rich, but it is dilute; it gives you many ideas, but almost none being very convincing (unlike his other book Origins of Virtue). This book is very very broad in its scope and comprehensiveness as the ideas presented here go. It could easily be a textbook on the subject. In terms of the relation between sex and behavior though, I was a lot better convinced by the Moral Animal.
I would, if it wasn't too crude an assertion, say that this book is a bit hastened. It is not as good as the author's other books, in terms of prose. But he being one of the best science writers around, even this is strictly superior to many science books out there. Also, even though I will sound priggish, I can't help noting that Bob Marley's lyrics is not "No woman, no cry" and it does not mean when there is no woman we do not cry. It is actually "No, woman, no cry." Another interesting thing is the Hume mention in the last page, where he says his treatise on human nature fell dead-born from the Press. Ridley implies some subtle meaning in this sentence, and that meaning is subtle, but Hume doesn't mean that (see Hume's autobiography).
These noted, this book is a must-read for anybody interested in the evolution and the queen of the problems in evolution, evolution of sex.
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