Forming a twenty-first-century statement on Darwinian evolution, one shorn of 'religious and political dogma,' Edward O. Wilson offers a work of scientific thought and synthesis.
Crucial to the broadest readership Genesis may attract is Wilson’s arresting belief that more germane insight will attend the study of insect eusociality...He adduces homosexuals and monastics as possible expressions of a eusocial nonreproductive caste among humans. Like virtually every one of Wilson’s books, deeply informative and provocative.
Wilson [is[ a skilled writer who accessibly addresses lay audiences ... A lucid, concise overview of human evolution that mentions tools and brain power in passing but focuses on the true source of our pre-eminence: the ability to work together.
While he does an impressive job in this short text of making the nature of the transitions clear, his explanation of group selection, in which evolution acts on a whole group rather than on individuals, and in particular the concept of eusociality is far too cursory to be fully understandable to the general reader ... leaves readers with a message that is optimistic and worthy of discussion even as it remains debatable.
