Evolution, Gender and Rape edited by Cheryl Brown Travis, MIT Press, $62/£41.50, ISBN 0262700905
UNDERSTANDING rape is horribly complicated. Incorporating evolutionary ideas could have been helpful, but instead, the publication of A Natural History of Rape: Biological bases for sexual coercion (MIT, 2000) by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer caused a furore. Pitting evolutionary theory against feminist theory, they proposed that rape is adaptive and that the emotions experienced by rape victims and their partners are adaptations too. These ideas caused dismay and despair, not only among social scientists but also among evolutionary biologists.
I feel the publication of…
