Maleness as survival strategy seems increasingly unwise in this
elaboration on the Y chromosome. As the old joke goes, referring to
the two X chromosomes that determine female sex and the X-Y pair
that confers maleness, everyone knows that women are cross (X) and
men are wise (Y). Not in today's world, laments the author, who
counts the ways in which men are undone by forces genetic,
behavioral, social, cultural, and environmental. To begin with, the
Y is a very small chromosome that lacks counterparts of many genes
on the X, so its bearer is heir to such diseases as hemophilia and
muscular dystrophy that are carried on the X. But that's just the
beginning. Jones (Genetics/University College, London; The Language
of Genes, 1994, etc.) deals with the origins of sexuality and
Darwin's notions of sexual selection: women choose, men compete. He
then rings changes on sexual behavior across the animal kingdom,
demonstrating just how wrong Darwin could be. Even the sex of
offspring is not immutable but in some species can be altered at
various stages in the life cycle. On the whole, Jones's debunking
is good and solid: no relation between baldness and virility, or an
extra Y and criminality; no good reason for circumcision; no genes
for homosexuality. He provides good information too on tracing
human migrations using the Y chromosome. But arriving at these gems
often means wading through masses of odd facts and tidbits Jones
has collected, or (worse) suffering at length with coy references
to the "member" in discourses on male anatomy, penile length, the
nature of erections, and treatments for ED from time immemorial to
Viagra. It seems that Jones is quite serious in bemoaning the
dethroning of males in the third millennium, what with women
outliving men, taking better care of themselves, and proving
professionally competent. Informative but off-putting unless you
agree that "ascent of women" implies "descent of men." (Kirkus
Reviews)
Men, towards the end of the last millennium, felt a sudden
tightening of the bowels with the news that the services of their
sex had at last been dispensed with. Dolly the Sheep - conceived
without male assistance - had arrived. Her birth reminded at least
half the population of how precarious man's position may be. What
is the point of being a man? For a brief and essential instant he
is a donor of DNA; but outside that glorious moment his role is
hard to understand. This book is about science not society; about
maleness not manhood. The condition is, in the end, a matter of
biology, whatever limits that science may have in explaining the
human condition. Today's advances in medicine and in genetics mean
at last we understand why men exist and why they are so frequent.
We understand from hormones to hydraulics how man's machinery
works, why he dies so young and how his brain differs from that of
the rest of mankind.
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