DANS L'OEIL DU PIGEON

An ethology essay to better understand the theory of evolution, to break stereotypes - particularly on the relationship of man and ape. In a simple and vivid language, the author explains that evolution is not synonymous with progress, but a mechanism devoid of purpose, and above all moral. Based on scientific knowledge, it shows that while biology helps us understand human behavior, it is strictly impossible to use it to judge or condemn.

A dogma that for a long time ruled the social sciences: wanting to find the
biological bases of human behaviour wasn't only a mistake but also a dangerous
illusion that could lead to the worst eugenic and fascist aberrations. For the
ethologist Luc Alain Giraldeau, it's exactly the opposite: the more we study
nature, the clearer it becomes that it can never be used to justify what's allowed
or forbidden. To agree to be Darwinian is to accept a truth with serious
consequences: the concept of good and bad cannot on any account come from
nature. Biology can be useful without necessarily being deterministic, blind, and
automatic. Biology is absolutely compatible with liberty. It just remains for us to
embrace what really distinguishes us from the animal world: the responsibility of
deciding acceptability and unacceptability.
This book tells of the strangeness of life, that which differentiates it from inertia,
the blind consequences of evolution and the emancipation of genes produced at
each major step of the invention of life, the multicellular organism, sexual
reproduction, animal societies and culture. Biology belongs to no one, especially
not to biologists. It's a culture, an index to decode reality. The view it has
developed of living things is revealing, intriguing, worrying, frustrating, and
stimulating. It would be a pity to reserve it solely for the world of natural
sciences and academia.

Luc-Alain Giraldeau is Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Science
at UQAM. Winner of the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Award of the French Society for the Study of Animal
Behaviour and the Prix Carrière en Recherche given by the University of Quebec, he copublished Le
Comportement animal (Dunod), Les Sociétés animales, lions, fourmis et ouistitis (Le Pommier) and
L'Écologie en ville (Fides).