Hmm …

…planet of the apes - bookforum.com / current issue. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The justification for Gottschall’s “barbaric version of masculinity” comes by way of evolutionary psychology, whose tenets inform the larger portion of The Professor in the Cage. The simple truth, Gottschall tells readers, is that men are violent because it’s “etched in the DNA of our species.” But although Gottschall refers frequently to “studies” and “science,” these terms function more as talismans than signifiers; he never says which genes, chromosomes, or protein strings regulate the propensity for violence. Rather, he beads together a welter of anecdotes and factoids about a variety of bellicose behaviors in humans and other primates and, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, concludes that the human behaviors must be evolutionarily derived from animal forebears. From “duelly eyes” to “dominance hierarchies” to “nothing fights,” it’s all a version of “the monkey dance,” a sweeping term for “all of the wild and frequently ridiculous varieties of ritualized conflict in human males.” The monkey dance’s many forms, though cloaked in complex and often esoteric idioms across history and cultures, run “perfectly parallel to animal versions,” he insists.

Anybody who thinks that women can't be every bit as violent and aggresive as men has lived an unusually sheltered life. It's also nice to learn that P. Z. Myers and I finally agree on something — in this case, in his area of expertise. Now if he could just understand that this gives him little expertise elsewhere …