Sex, Genes & Rock ’n’ Roll: How Evolution Has Shaped the Modern World

That evolution has played a significant role in shaping many facets of human social systems and individual behaviors has become axiomatic in recent years. Brooks, an evolutionary biologist from the University of New South Wales, uses an evolutionary lens to examine many of the specifics embedded in that axiom. By ranging widely—covering obesity, population growth, sex and mating patterns, and aging—he demonstrates the many ways differential reproduction, the most important feature of evolution, touches on every aspect of our lives. Brooks is a capable writer, but most of his major ideas have been previously expressed by others. There is nothing new, for example, about explaining how the food-gathering practices of early humans are largely responsible for our penchant for fatty food and our world-wide obesity epidemic. Brooks is weakest when he uses rock music as a case study for evolutionary thinking. He’s at his best when he warns about the global political consequences of dramatically unequal sex ratios found among the poorest and most populated Asian countries: a projected 60 million excess men by 2020 in India and China, lacking reproductive prospects, “[threaten] not only peace and order within those societies but also regional and global stability.” (Mar.)