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| The Evolution of Fatherhood: A Celebration of Animal and Human Families | 
| Author: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $4.49
You Save: $9.46 (68%)
New (5) from $4.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1616504
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0345452712
Dewey Decimal Number: 590
EAN: 9780345452719
ASIN: 0345452712
Publication Date: April 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
A Disneyesque view of the world. April 6, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This book was formerly published as 'The Emperor's Embrace'.
Near the end of this book, when faced yet again with infanticide, Masson says 'But it seems that the more we learn, the more our ideals, or in any event our fantasies, about the harmonious life of animals are toppled'. Yet he still holds fast to his ideals and fantasies.
With very few examples of fathering in mammals Masson has to rely largely on fish, frogs and birds. He wants us to believe that these animals experience life much as we do. I wondered what he would make of, for example, the little angler fish male that melts permanently into the body of the large female leaving little more than gonads to fertilize her eggs. What thoughts and feelings could this fish have?
When he says things such as parents feeding a cuckoo in their nest might be thinking 'This big chick may not be mine, but I like him, and I am going to feed him anyway', it will make evolutionary scientists laugh, cringe or despair.
Masson wants to encourage human fathers to be good fathers but he is looking at evolution without understanding natural selection so cannot be taken too seriously. He often talks of individuality and variation without seeming to realize that variation is precisely what natural selection acts upon - though perhaps it is a valid point that not enough attention is paid to the present-day individuality of animals on which selection will still be acting.
Masson does recognize the correlation between monogamy and the lack of sexual dimorphism and fathering. He is clearly greatly impressed by fathering when it does exist but seems to think it involves heroism or joyful experience - ie choice - rather than a selected adaptation.
I am far from convinced by his argument that human males are not concerned about paternity certainty. Also by his statement that there is no chapter on the missing ape father because it would not be interesting. On the contrary, it would be very interesting to read his views on why our closest relatives have 'chosen' not to experience the joys of fatherhood.
Masson ends with the view that Darwin himself held - the continuity with humans in the emotional and mental life of animals. Clearly humans have evolved and there can only be continuity. But Masson's Disneyesque view of life is over the top and can probably do little to change human fathering in the real world.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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