The seductions of criticism

![][1] Why Men Won't Ask for Directions: The Seductions of Sociobiologyby Richard C. FrancisPrinceton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA325 pages, $30/£20ISBN 0691057575Finally, a book that explains men's unwillingness to ask for directions. But what is the explanation? In Why Men Won't Ask for Directions: The Seductions of Sociobiology , Richard Francis, an evolutionary neurobiologist, keeps us in suspense until Chapter 9, in which we finally get the answer—or rather, his answer.Francis uses this particular example of male behaviour to illustrate how evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists explain differences between the sexes. To prepare the reader, early chapters discuss evolutionary theory, the role of adaptation, the nature of design, asexual versus sexual reproduction, the nature of sex differences, and more. The narrative proceeds through case studies of animals—sex change in fishes, unusual copulation in lizards, food storing among tits—and descriptions of the hippocampus and hormone system.The author's central point is that the view of evolution taken by sociobiologists (behavioural ecologists) and evolutionary psychologists is … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif