The Ant and the Peacock

Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today

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Paperback | 27 December 1993

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Paperback
508 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 2.87

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This book is a success story. It explains two long-running puzzles of the theory of natural selection. How can natural selection favour those, like the ant, that renounce tooth and claw in favour of the public-spirited ways of the commune? How can it explain the peacock's tail, flamboyant and a burden to its bearer; surely selection would act against useless ornamentation? Helena Cronin's enthralling account blends history, science and philosophy in a gripping tale that is scholarly, entertaining and eminently readable. The hardback edition was selected by Nature as one of the best scientific books in 1992. Also the New York Times chose it as one of their best books of 1992. The author divides her time between the Philosophy Department at the London School of Economics and the Zoology Department at Oxford.

Industry Reviews

'Part detective story and part philosophical enquiry, The Ant and the Peacock offers a paradox in every paragraph.' J. G. Ballard, Weekend Telegraph 'Nobody with an interest in how the human mind has come to work the way it does can fail to be gripped by it.' The Economist 'In her racy and provocative way, Dr Cronin tells a story that sums up the essence of neo-Darwinism ... Part detective story and part philosophical enquiry, The Ant and the Peacock offers a paradox in every paragraph ...' Weekend Telegraph 'The finest study of the evolution of Darwinian thought that we have to date ... Cronin's special understanding of the sexual force in evolution's drive adds a most important dynamic to this work.' The New England Review of Books

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Foreword	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Darwinism, its Rivals and its Renegades
Walking archives	p. 3
A world without Darwin	p. 7
1859	p. 7
Rivals and follies: 1859 and beyond	p. 35
Goodbye to all that	p. 47
Darwinism old and new	p. 53
Anticipations of things past	p. 53
Organism to gene	p. 59
Structures to strategists	p. 66
Complexities and diversities	p. 79
Demarcations of design	p. 81
The scrapheap of chance	p. 87
'Strange deviations tied together'	p. 93
Artefacts of our minds	p. 106
The Peacock
The sting in the peacock's tail	p. 113
Flying in the face of natural selection	p. 113
The career of a controversy	p. 118
Nothing but natural selection?	p. 123
'The advocate of pure Darwinism'	p. 123
Coloration for protection	p. 124
Coloration for recognition	p. 129
Explaining away display	p. 131
Coloration without selection	p. 133
Males for Darwin, females for Wallace?	p. 146
Wallace's legacy: A century of natural selection	p. 155
Can females shape males?	p. 165
Only humans can choose	p. 165
Not choosing, just looking	p. 167
'The instability of a vicious feminine caprice'	p. 168
The trouble with taste	p. 174
Do sensible females prefer sexy males?	p. 183
Good taste or good sense?	p. 183
Darwin's solution: Beauty for beauty's sake	p. 183
Wallace's solution: Not just a pretty tail	p. 186
Is 'good sense' sensible?	p. 191
Fisher's solution: Good taste makes good sense	p. 201
'Until careful experiments are made ...'	p. 205
Ghosts of Darwinism surpassed	p. 231
The changing face of sexual selection	p. 231
A happy ending to the peacock's tale	p. 243
The Ant
Altruism now	p. 253
The problem with altruism	p. 253
The problem solved	p. 253
'Altruism' reanalysed	p. 264
Altruism then	p. 267
Nature most cruel	p. 267
Altruism unseen	p. 274
Altruism levelled down	p. 283
The social insects: Kind kin	p. 293
Make dove, not war: Conventional forces	p. 311
Human altruism: A natural kind?	p. 325
Darwin: Morality as natural history	p. 325
Wallace: Wise before the event	p. 353
Huxley: Morality at enmity with nature	p. 367
Spencer: Darwinian bodies, Lamarckian minds	p. 371
Rhetorical skirmishes	p. 378
Breeding between the lines	p. 381
The origin of species	p. 381
Speciating for the greater good	p. 387
Selection's great divide: Mating or weaning?	p. 390
The problem for Darwin and Wallace	p. 395
Darwin against creation: Incidental, not endowed	p. 400
Darwin against natural selection: Incidental, not selected	p. 402
Darwin's adaptive interlude	p. 407
Wallace: The power of natural selection	p. 416
Origins elusive	p. 425
Epilogue	p. 431
Note on the letters of Darwin and Wallace	p. 433
Bibliography	p. 439
Index	p. 475
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

The Ant and the Peacock

Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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