From William J. Cromartie, Richard Stockton College
Calling Darwin’s theory of sexual selection “false and unfixable”, as Roughgarden does, makes for good Darwin-bashing. But the charge doesn’t stand up. It is like saying that because many organisms use food for purposes other than nourishment (giving an apple to your teacher, for instance), the “theory” of the struggle to obtain nourishment is “false and unfixable”. “Power to control access to reproductive opportunities” sounds important, but no matter what other uses sex is put to, which genes are passed on depends on whose gametes meet.
Roughgarden cites Bagemihl’s list of 300 species showing homosexual behaviour. That amounts to fewer than 1 per cent of all vertebrate species, which still sounds exceptional, rather than pervasive.
Pomona, New Jersey, US
