An author called Joan Roughgarden, in her new book Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexualilty in Nature and People, argues that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection doesn’t fit the available data based on her research on homosexuality and same-sex relationships in humans and other animals.

This interview with Roughgarden is interesting, although a bit shallow, and actually left me wanting to yell through my computer screen at her. At one point she says, “A typical couple has sex once a week for 50 years, but has only two offspring,” which is so wrong if you’re looking at the human population as a whole right now and at humans in the millions of years that we’ve existed. At other times, though, she makes intelligent reference to things like polygamy.

I hope this is a useful, interesting and well-researched book, but this interview raises a few doubts. I wondered what you all would think.