Thinking about Evolution — Historical, Philosophical, and Political Perspectives.

Rama S. Singh, Costa B. Krimbas, Diane B. Paul and John Beatty (eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2000. Pp. 606. Price £60.00, hardback. ISBN 0 521 62070 8.

Thinking about Evolution is a thoughtful book, as befits a volume in honour of Richard Lewontin. It is the second of two volumes, the first of which was devoted to Lewontin’s more technical contributions to evolution. In this second volume, the authors discuss interconnected historical, philosophical and sociological aspects of evolutionary thinking. These are all broad subjects to which Lewontin has actively contributed. He has been responsible for exposing common scientific and logical errors, and challenging accepted views of society, evolutionary biology, and the relationships between them. Lewontin is one of those rare individuals who is an excellent scientist, has a deep social commitment, and is also a true intellectual. The volume starts with a typical Lewontin essay followed by an interesting interview, and both give the reader a strong flavour of Lewontin’s concerns and attitudes. Lewontin is clearly also a great teacher, who has influenced all of the people that have studied and worked with him (and many of those that have just read him). The 26 essays following Lewontin’s own essay and the interview were written mostly by former students and colleagues, and all testify to this fundamental influence through adopting his deeply skeptical, critical attitude. Not all are in agreement with him, although most are, but they are all sensitive to the historical framework in which genetic and evolutionary ideas have developed, to conceptual issues, and to the political influences and effects of past and present evolutionary ideas.

Thinking about Evolution does require that you make the effort of thinking, which is refreshing and much needed in these days of cheap preaching of biological wisdom. Most of the contributors avoid the inflated rhetoric associated with the ‘Darwin Wars’, although the views of the authors are quite clearly critical of the selfish gene view of the world. The essays cover many subjects, and, inevitably, not all are of the same quality and eloquence. For example, I was not very convinced by an essay defending neo-Darwinism, nor impressed by an essay advocating a Platonic approach to the study of cognition and rationality, but most essays in the volume are both readable and informative. We learn, for example, that eugenic arguments were not so much the result of bad biology, but rather due to bad politics; that genetic studies of the Indian caste system lead to a better appreciation of social determinism, not genetic determinism (there is great genetic overlap among the castes). We also learn how population genetics developed in early 20th century France, how economic interests define genetic thinking and practices in agriculture, about the many methodological problems in behavioural genetics, and about the effects of social and economic interests on the increase (and more rarely, the decrease) of cancer. There are also interesting essays on philosophical issues, mainly about units of selection and the constructive aspects of organism — environment interactions. The breadth of the book is in a sense a virtue, but the lack of a strong common thread among the different essays makes continuous reading tedious. I certainly recommend the book, and I believe it will be very useful (in spite of its forbidding price) for teachers of the history, sociology and philosophy of biology. Some essays, mainly the historical and ‘political’ ones, may also interest evolutionary biologists and geneticists; they provide a useful antidote to the naïve beliefs in genetic utopias that are so fashionable today.