Despite the salacious title, or maybe because of it,
Barash and Lipton’s How Women Got Their Curves and other Just-So Stories is an
interesting survey of the evolutionary biology of women’s bodies. The book is an excellent way for beginners
to the subject to understand how an empirical science emerges from the matrix of
theories and preconceptions. Much of
this subject is still in the realm of pure speculation. A form of informed logic is used to hash out
issues like the concealed ovulation and menopause. This
is how a science begins. From these
thought experiments, called Just-So stories by the authors, empirical research can
go forth, and firmer data, we hope, can be provided.
The book also performs one of the time honored
missions of science. It knocks yet
another supposition of human supremacy from its perch. Our bodies have been and are subject to
natural selection just like every other animal.
If we have not explored ourselves from this standpoint, it is because of
our inability to place ourselves under the same scrutiny as every thing else.
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