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A review by archytas
Paleofantasy: What Evolution Really Tells Us about Sex, Diet, and How We Live by Marlene Zuk
4.5
I'm working my way through most of the popular books on the market about human evolution, and I would without hesitation recommend this as the first book to someone interested. I rejected reading it for some time because of the `paleofantasy' marketing angle: so I thought it would be mostly full of the all-too-easy cheap shots at the paleo diet crowd, but this book goes far deeper than that. Zuk lays out an evolutionary biologist understanding of human evolution, what we're pretty sure of (how patterns work to create evolution, some things that our species is more specialised in, and that humans are good adapters to wildly different conditions) and what we don't know (what pre-human ancestors were actually like).
Unfortunately, many reviewers seem to not get past the fact that Zuk did not prove a Paleo diet is bad for you: completely missing that the book was never about that.
Which is not to say that there aren't cheap shots. Zuk seems largely motivated by annoyance at the way various movements have sought to return to a particular moment in our evolution when we were perfectly suited to our lifestyle. She has enormous fun with a group of NYC Cavemen, who run barefoot, eat raw meat and give blood regularly to imitate blood loss from wounds. But it isn't just the dieters, she also takes on hunter-man, childrearer-woman brigade, and attachment parenting. Zuk uses her biology knowledge to explain at length that no species is ever perfectly adapted; that like us, our primate genetic ancestors have always had highly varied ways of living, eating and organising their families, and, perhaps most powerfully, that we are still evolving.
Zuk also has a keen understanding of the way our society governs our science. She somewhat caustically remarks early on that if we want to make a dangerous or harmful choice - whether that be cheating on a partner, or eating a meal we know is bad for us, it makes it easier to blame our genes. In discussing the infamous chimp/bonobo divide, she comments that many assume if we had studied bonobos earlier, in the 70s, we would have a different view of human nature, but adds: 'This is one possibility; the other is that if we had known about bonobos earlier, we would have characterized them as more violent and warlike than we do now, simply because anthropologists and primatologists in the 1960s and ’70s were disposed to emphasize male aggression, which bonobos do exhibit, albeit to a lesser extent than chimps do.'
Along the way, she provides a wonderful crash course in genetics; paleoanthropology; and some aspects of basic human biology. Each chapter is packed with enough content about current scholarship to power a book. There are some real gems in here: and once Zuk has schooled us on the proper way to speculate about the past, she allows herself to indulge in some speculation, from the possible survival advance of active elders in child rearing; through polygamy as a result of agriculture in some societies, or whether smallpox resulted in a great step forward for European immune systems (by wiping out so many without them). I may not have agreed with every conclusion, but I had the freedom to disagree as Zuk explains the evidence, the arguments and the detracting arguments for each she raises, and the footnotes were excellent*. Zuk loves science, takes it seriously, and most of all wants us to know that our past doesn't constrain us: it can tell us how we got here, but not where to go next. As she puts it: 'Rather than trying to use our past to proscribe our present, or our future, we can use it as a way to understand where we came from ... whatever we choose has consequences, and choices have to be made. We do not have genes plunked wholesale into one environment or another, whether Paleolithic, medieval, or industrial; we have genes that respond to that environment and to each other.'
*One exception: they weren't linked in the ebook, necessitating a tedious process of looking them up. Thankfully this is getting rarer, but it is irritating.
Unfortunately, many reviewers seem to not get past the fact that Zuk did not prove a Paleo diet is bad for you: completely missing that the book was never about that.
Which is not to say that there aren't cheap shots. Zuk seems largely motivated by annoyance at the way various movements have sought to return to a particular moment in our evolution when we were perfectly suited to our lifestyle. She has enormous fun with a group of NYC Cavemen, who run barefoot, eat raw meat and give blood regularly to imitate blood loss from wounds. But it isn't just the dieters, she also takes on hunter-man, childrearer-woman brigade, and attachment parenting. Zuk uses her biology knowledge to explain at length that no species is ever perfectly adapted; that like us, our primate genetic ancestors have always had highly varied ways of living, eating and organising their families, and, perhaps most powerfully, that we are still evolving.
Zuk also has a keen understanding of the way our society governs our science. She somewhat caustically remarks early on that if we want to make a dangerous or harmful choice - whether that be cheating on a partner, or eating a meal we know is bad for us, it makes it easier to blame our genes. In discussing the infamous chimp/bonobo divide, she comments that many assume if we had studied bonobos earlier, in the 70s, we would have a different view of human nature, but adds: 'This is one possibility; the other is that if we had known about bonobos earlier, we would have characterized them as more violent and warlike than we do now, simply because anthropologists and primatologists in the 1960s and ’70s were disposed to emphasize male aggression, which bonobos do exhibit, albeit to a lesser extent than chimps do.'
Along the way, she provides a wonderful crash course in genetics; paleoanthropology; and some aspects of basic human biology. Each chapter is packed with enough content about current scholarship to power a book. There are some real gems in here: and once Zuk has schooled us on the proper way to speculate about the past, she allows herself to indulge in some speculation, from the possible survival advance of active elders in child rearing; through polygamy as a result of agriculture in some societies, or whether smallpox resulted in a great step forward for European immune systems (by wiping out so many without them). I may not have agreed with every conclusion, but I had the freedom to disagree as Zuk explains the evidence, the arguments and the detracting arguments for each she raises, and the footnotes were excellent*. Zuk loves science, takes it seriously, and most of all wants us to know that our past doesn't constrain us: it can tell us how we got here, but not where to go next. As she puts it: 'Rather than trying to use our past to proscribe our present, or our future, we can use it as a way to understand where we came from ... whatever we choose has consequences, and choices have to be made. We do not have genes plunked wholesale into one environment or another, whether Paleolithic, medieval, or industrial; we have genes that respond to that environment and to each other.'
*One exception: they weren't linked in the ebook, necessitating a tedious process of looking them up. Thankfully this is getting rarer, but it is irritating.