Evolutionary Bio has always been of great Interest to me, and Bitch by Lucy Cooke is scratching that itch right now.
You would not guess it from the cover, a combination of pop science and pop feminism imagery, but so far this book is thorough, insightful, well researched, and hilarious. The central conceit of Bitch is to examine how societies’ assumptions about sex and gender have introduced biases into the study of evolutionary biology.
What data has been thrown out?
What animals have been ignored?
What questions were not asked?
These are the questions Bitch asks as it explores the history of the field in its cultural context, and interviews the modern researchers trying to fill in the gaps.
Now its impossible to talk about accessible books in evolutionary bio without thinking of the titan that is The Selfish Gene. Though I agree with all of Dawkins points, I am not a fan.
I personally find it to be poorly argued, as Dawkins is prone to logical fallacies and what I call “trust me bro” examples. These are examples where Dawkins will say there is a species of butterfly that does X, without naming the species or giving any contextual information for a reader to research further. But why would a reader need to? They’re reading Dawkins after all, what more could they need. I found these “trust me bro” examples to be particularly egregious on my first read through after noting several factual inaccuracies in The Selfish Gene, which made that trust difficult. If you want a book detailing how evolution acts on the level of the gene On Adaptation and Natural Selection makes the same point with gorgeously constructed arguments.
Bitch has none of these problems so far. Lucy Cooke does not presume to be an expert on every subject so she brings in the people who are. Her references specific and easy to check, both for scientific research and historical writings. It is everything I WISH The Selfish Gene was.
In that vein I am going to make this my next project, to investigate one example from each chapter of Bitch. Prepare for lots of weird genitals.
This should be fun