num_pages: 238
description: Robert Trivers is a living legend in biology and the social sciences a man the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls ''one of the great thinkers in the history of Western thought and Time magazine named one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th Century. His theories on the evolutionary tensions between parent and offspring sibling and sibling man and woman friend and friend and a person and himself or herself have not only revolutionized genetics and evolutionary biology but have influenced disciplines from medicine and the social sciences to history economics and literary studies. But unlike other renowned scientists Trivers has spent time behind bars drove a getaway car for Huey P. Newton and founded an armed group in Jamaica to protect gay men from mob violence. Now in the entertaining tradition of Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman Trivers tell us in his inimitable voice about the inimitable life behind the revolutionary science. He comments with irreverent wit and penetrating insight on everything from American racism to the history of psychiatry to who killed Peter Tosh musical heir to Bob Marley. Sprinkled with anecdotes about such luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould and with photographs throughout this volume is sure to enlighten and entertain anyone with an interest in science the human condition or the nature of creative genius. PRAISE FOR WILD LIFETo call Robert Trivers an acclaimed biologist is an understatement akin to calling the late Richard Feynman a popular professor of physics. -- PSYCHOLOGY TODAYWho would have guessed that arguably todays most original thinker in evolutionary theory could possibly have led the extraordinary life Robert Trivers recounts in these pages. We are taken on a wild trip from inspired meditations on the biology of self deception through a steamy Jamaican underworld to Black Panthers in California to frank appraisals of distinguished or over-rated scientists the whole adding up to a disarmingly frank and utterly unique memoir of a rollercoaster of a life. -- RICHARD DAWKINS bestselling author of The Selfish Gene and The God DelusionRobert Trivers is not just a brilliant evolutionary thinker but a world-class raconteur adventurer kibitzer people-watcher jester and provocateur. This memoir is filled with sharp and hilarious observations about the living world not least a certain species of hairless primate not least a certain member of that species named Robert Trivers.  STEVEN PINKERbest-selling author of How the Mind Works and The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has DeclinedIt would not be hyperbole to say that Robert Trivers is one of the most important evolutionary theorists since Charles Darwin. But contrary to the image most people have of theoretical scientists as stodgy intellectuals holed up in their offices buried in paper Trivers' memoir reveals a man whose life has been wild in every sense of the word. A lust for life doesnt begin to sum up a career devoted to truth courage and the audacity to think what no one else has thought and to act in ways few others would dare (youll even learn how to defend yourself in a knife fight). If that were not enough Trivers is witty clever and compassionate. This book is destined to become a classic in scientific autobiography. -- MICHAEL SHERMER Editor in Chief The SkepticABOUT THE AUTHORRobert Trivers is a professor of anthropology and biological sciences at Rutgers University.
language: English
title: Wild Life: Adventures of an Evolutionary Biologist
publisher: Biosocial Research