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Evolution, Gender and Rape edited by Cheryl Brown Travis, MIT Press, $62/拢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 A Natural History of Rape was morally irresponsible. A topic with such far-reaching social implications needs to be treated with great care, sensitivity and scientific rigour. But it wasn鈥檛 and Evolution, Gender and Rape (also published by MIT Press) is a collection of essays from 22 different authors, whose aim is to try to set the record straight.

As much as I dislike A Natural History of Rape, I couldn鈥檛 help feeling that the balance between anger and constructive suggestions in Evolution, Gender and Rape could have been better. Several of the authors hit out as one might expect at Thornhill and Palmer, but also at evolutionary biology in general, at evolutionary psychology in particular and at the media for feasting on such controversial issues.

The anger is understandable, but it is dissipated energy. I fervently wish that this book were more structured, more clearly written and ultimately more successful. The authors contributing to this volume do so from a variety of academic backgrounds and employ a wide range of writing styles to express their concerns. Rape is a complex issue, but it is made more complex by those engaged in the debate using such different modes of language and thought.

It would have been helpful had the book started with a clear account of the issues at stake, stating what it was in Thornhill and Palmer鈥檚 book that so incensed people. Instead, you must pick up this information piecemeal as you work through the chapters.

Luckily Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Chicago provides a very clear account of why Thornhill and Palmer鈥檚 analysis is wrong. In good plain English, Coyne exposes layer upon layer of sloppy thinking and careless analysis, strengthening among other things the suspicions of many that Thornhill and Palmer鈥檚 book was deliberately controversial.

The overall theme in this diverse collection of essays is the question of whether evolutionary psychology has anything useful to say about understanding rape. The answer seems to be that it does, but not on its own. Instead, as Jacquelyn White and Lori Post, authors of one of the final chapters, point out, the causes of rape are so diverse that a multidisciplinary approach is essential if we are to make progress. This means that researchers from many different backgrounds will have to talk to each other rather more than perhaps they have in the past. Evolution, Gender and Rape is a useful start, but there is a long way to go.