The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science

By Martha McCaughey

Book Overview

Has evolution made men promiscuous skirt chasers? Pop-Darwinian claims about men's irrepressible heterosexuality have become increasingly common, and increasingly common excuses for men's sexual aggression. The Caveman Mystique traces such claims about the hairier sex through evolutionary science and popular culture. After outlining the social and historical context of the rise of pop-Darwinism's assertions about male sexuality and their appeal to many men, Martha McCaughey shows how evolutionary discourse can get lived out as the biological truth of male sexuality.

Although evolutionary scientists want to use their theories to solve social problems, evolutionary narratives get invoked by men looking for a Darwinian defense of bad-boy behaviors. McCaughey argues that evolution has nearly replaced religion as a moral guide for understanding who we are and what we must overcome to be good people.

Bringing together insights from the fields of science studies, body studies, feminist theory and queer theory, The Caveman Mystique offers a fresh understanding of science, science popularization, and the impact of science on men's identities making a convincing case for deconstructing, rather than defending, the caveman.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415934753
• ISBN13: 9780415934756
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

How science influences society, and vice versa.

While the author may not be a biologist, she demonstrates how pop-darwinism has influenced mainstream society, often for the worse. I certainly have a lot of respect and interest in Evolutionary Psychology, but this book made me think about a lot of its claims in a different light. An excellent book to read whether your interest is biology or social sciences.

Recommended, but with Reservations

This slim volume offers a survey of how Darwinism has been abused in popular science literature to justify the ideology of patriarchy. Unfortunately for the author, her misreading of Darwinism, lack of understanding of Baldwinian selection, as well as some evident philosophical blunders overshadows the important message she conveys. One example of her misunderstanding of Darwinism is in her hypothetical example of how male impotence could be selected for. McCaughey forgets that her example as stated works ONLY if individual organisms are the unit of selection. However, as Dawkins points out, and what is now widely accepted, is that genes are the units of selection. She also tends to hedge considerably with her use of soft language; which, though common in the social sciences, is quite useless to demonstrate anything of value, and tends to mislead uncritical readers. This book is interesting, and worth reading, but only if read carefully, cautiously, and critically.