March 17, 2000

Scientists Debunk the Idea That Evolution Makes Rapists

By RICHARD MONASTERSKY

A Natural History of Rape has raised blood pressures both inside and outside academe with its assertion that rape is an evolutionary adaptation, but most of the public debate has overlooked the scientific data cited by the book. Now, two evolutionary biologists have taken a closer look at the evidence and contend that it fails to support the authors' controversial conclusions.

In the book, published this year by MIT Press, Randy Thornhill, a biologist at the

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