THE quandaries of the west can all be explained by evolution. At least, so says Rob Brooks, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. In Sex, Genes & Rock ‘n’ Roll, he argues, convincingly, that the obesity crisis, declining fertility rates and even Ozzy Osbourne’s hedonism are down to natural selection.
While Brooks’s prose is playful and entertaining, few ideas in this book are new. Most people with an interest in evolution will have already considered the disconnect between our current sedentary lifestyles and former hunter-gatherer ways as a factor driving obesity, for example.
He has…
