I'm not convinced on the evolution stuff, but I still enjoyed the read.

I'm not entirely sure why I checked out the title How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks, by Robin Dunbar, but I'm guessing I saw it on my library's list of new nonfiction books and thought it sounded intriguing.

I wasn't wrong--Dunbar is a professor of psychology and offers here a variety of very readable science essays on evolution and other "evolutionary quirks" like why tall people seem to be more successful, why we laugh, what morning sickness could be for, and how many friends with whom we can really keep in actual successful contact (the number seems to be about 150, known as Dunbar's Number). For basic science writing, it's kind of light and easily understandable:

"Our brains are massively expensive, consuming about twenty per cent of our total energy intake even though they only account for about two per cent of our total body weight. That's a massive cost to bear, so brains really need to be spectacularly useful if they are going to be worth the cost. The consensus, at least for the primate family, is that we have our big brains to enable us to cope with the complexities of our social world...It seems that it is pairbonding that is the real drain on the brain. So let me ask: have you been struggling yet again with your partner's foibles?...Among the birds and mammals in general, the species with the biggest brains relative to body size are precisely those that mate monogamously." (p. 12.)

I enjoyed that a lot. Particularly in light of my and Mr. CR's recent and unsatisfying skirmishes regarding what constitutes a fair division of household duties.

So yeah, in bits, this is an interesting book. I did skip some of the chapters that were more blatantly about evolution, mostly because I just don't care about evolution as a subject at all.* If you're looking for a book that will provide some neat ah-ha! moments, you might like this one; but it will be liked best by those with a strong bent toward the topics of evolution and evolutionary biology and psychology.

*There is nothing I find more boring than the creationism/evolution debate. I don't even get why it IS a debate, frankly. If you believe that God can do anything, why is it hard to believe that God could create evolution? But much of that is probably my ignorance talking. I don't really know anything about the science of evolution, except that it seems to involve a lot of something I once saw on my brother's t-shirt. Two scientists, working at a chalkboard. On one side are equations, and on the other side are equations, and in the middle: "A miracle occurs." Evolutionary scientists always seem (to me, anyway) to be the types who say, "a million years ago was this, then a miracle occurred, and now we all have wider pelvises. At least we think it's because a miracle occurred, but we don't really know."

Comments

[hapax]

Okay, as the spouse of an evolutionary scientist, let me make it as quick and easy as I can:

Every population contains variation: that is, every human being is a little different from every other human, every cat is a little different from every other cat, every slime mold is different from every slime mold, and so on.

These differences allow living things to interact with their environments differently: if you are an elephant that is a little bit bigger than the other male elephants, it's more likely that you will be able to fight them off and get access to more female elephants; it's less likely that the lions looking at the elephant herd will take you on. If you're a lion who is a little bit faster than the other lions, it's more likely that you will get to the elephant herd first and get first dibs on the meal, and hey, who knew that the lady lions fancied a bit of a neck ruff?

But these differences also have downsides: if you're bigger or faster, you need to eat more, and in tough times you're likely to starve. Genes can be linked in quirky ways; it turns out that the gene that turns on growing a mane also increases the likelihood of hip dysplasia (that one I just made up, but I have seen weirder links).

Here's the biggie: a difference that gives you an advantage *in a particular environment* makes it more likely that you will have offspring. A difference that gives you a disadvantage *in a particular environment* makes it less likely you will have offspring.

The more offspring you have, the more that particular difference will show up in future populations. Over a LONG time, that difference -- *if it continues to give an advantage* -- will no longer be a "difference", but the dominant trait in the population.

Elephants will all become big -- to a point. Lions will all become fast -- to a point. All the males will have manes -- with different thicknesses.

But variation will still remain in the population (there will be smaller elephants and lions with scruffy manes) because every population is still made up of individuals. And that's a good thing, because environments ALSO change -- temperatures get colder, summers get drier, rivers change their course, volcanos erupt, a new species may show up and start competing with yours, etc. etc.

That's evolutionary science in a nutshell. It's really just that simple. No miracles necessary.

(Although trying to trace the individual variations, and how they interact with each other over time in different environments, is what makes evolutionary science so complex and fascinating. The math can become so tricky that it often does look like handwaving and "then a miracle happened" -- or as my spouse calls them, "Just So stories".)

But the basic idea hasn't changed since Darwin pointed it out a hundred and fifty or so years ago.

[Citizen Reader]

Hapax,
I appreciate the very readable definition. That does square with what I had in mind of the basic idea. I'm always left with this question: did they not teach any of this stuff in my high school or was I not paying attention? I'm guessing a lot of it, sadly, was the latter. So thank you for continuing my education at a point when I AM paying attention.

Two thoughts back:
I still don't see why any of that excludes God, so I'll never understand the fight of evolution vs. creation;
and, it's stories like the one linked below that make me question how much modern evolutionary scientists, through no fault of their own, really "know":
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/04/18/early-human-fossils-from-south-africa-could-upend-long-held-view-of-human-evolution/

So I think it's more the tone of many scientists ("this is so because of that") that puts me off. Although I do love the idea of "Just So Stories." Good stuff, that.

[laura]

I'm a firm believer in evolution and a firm believer in God. I've never had a problem with holding both in my head. But I fight on the evolution side of the debate, if I have to. I don't think evolution excludes the idea of God, but I do think creationism excludes the idea of evolution.