Human sexuality: what's the real story?
- Thread starter Scott75
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Wha? Could you expand on that? It does not seem to connect to the preceding post.
I don't mean to be changing the sign posts at all. I am trying to evaluate the theory. No where did I suggest I accept the promiscuity as fact, I was silent on that issue. Was it in Sperm wars?
My problem with the "selfish gene" perspective is that (among other things) I don't understand how the gene is supposed to communicate information or be acted upon by the environment, which is kind of important for Darwinian evolution.
For instance in African matrilineal cultures, not only do the men invest resources in their sisters children, matters of tribe and royalty are passed down the same way. How does a culture or group of people, who have no idea of genetics know to do this?
And if we are to believe that this gene favouring behaviour evolved through Darwinian (as opposed to Lamarkian) evolution (and this is a tricky area) we should see some evidence of pre-mat cultures failing for that reason, or perhaps some intermediate forms. Otherwise we are engaging in a series of "just so" hypothesis which is fun, but not scientifically very helpful.
I dont see why it cant be Darwinian. A man who invests more in his wife, if she is promiscuous, ends up genetically being weeded out. So all that needs to evolve is an awareness of how much promiscuity is around him. If its a high figure, men simply treat their wives as live in prostitutes for sex. If its low they have mechanisms to pair bond ('love' as its called).
Right here, many men wouldn't love a prostitute - but fuck her, but love their wives. So you see the elements of it already - its not something theoretical.
There is very little difference between these two statements, eh? If men start investing in their sisters more than their wives, matters of the tribe will soon follow the same pattern - those are resources too.
Lamarkian is the wrong word. The brain is formed through evolution, and it responds to different environments in different ways.
Pre-mat cultures dont 'fail'. No culture 'fails' as long as its members, on average, reproduce their numbers. The test of a 'fail' would be competitive evolution - how much of the globe is covered by pre-mat cultures? 0.01%? Patriarchal cultures conquered and absorbed them.
Intermediate forms... of the top of my head, all I can easily think of is Islam - which allows men to have 4 wives each. When I was younger I read somewhere, in passing, that less than 4% of men in the middle east have more than 1 wife, so even here we have the culture, by law, competing with social norms.
Well, things acting at the genetic level cannot be Darwinian, because Darwin believed that natural selection operated at the level of the organism responding to its environment. IF the environment cannot act on the gene I don't see how it can be Darwinian. As I have said elsewhere, my suspicion is that genetic trends are symptoms of natural selection not causes. They may set some of the parameters but they don't drive the process.
But there is no connection between the gene and the behaviour correct? You are suggesting there is a gene that makes men favour the children of their sister, over the children of their wife. And some mechanism in the gene that makes this happen. But as far as I know no such gene or mechanism has been identified.
What you seem to be presenting is just an adaptionist theory without any hard evidence. What is the mechanism by which the gene causes the behaviour?
And when you talk about Islam, or christianity you are talking about cultural evolution, which really is Lamarkian and not biological. There is no biological difference between Christian and Islamic populations that makes them deal with wives differently. Once you are talking about cultural change you have broken away from biological evolution entirely.
Could I trouble you to list a few? According to evolutionary anthropologist Helen Fisher, in Anatomy of Love, no matriarchal societies exist, and there is no record of any ever having existed, despite feminist assertions that they might have in prehistoric times - an assumption that is based pretty much entirely on the existence of a bunch of neolithic "Venus" sculptures unearthed here and there.
Would you agree that without genes, evolution would generally proceed at a glacial pace in comparison to how it happens now? I can't ask Dawkins' on his view here, but it seems that this is what he was getting at when he meant that genes were a cause of evolution.
Personally, I think that his best work is contained in his last chapter of his new edition of "The Selfish Gene", entitled "Good guys finish first". In it, he talks about something that has a much faster transmission rate then genes; memes, or ideas. He also goes on to make a very cogent argument on why good people tend to prevail over bad people over time. Really good read in my view.
In North America alone I can think of Hopi, Iroquois, Navaho, Tlingit. There is one in Central America, but the name escapes me. Ms Fishers train of thought goes against almost everyone I've been in contact with. The largest grouping of matriarchal societies are in Asia.
Aye. I had a native american room-mate whose society was matriarchal. I'm guessing it was one of the Iroqouis tribes, I can't remember the name now though.
I believe I read it in Nature magazine I will see if I still have the issue at home. It was either nature or discover.
edit- without going through the old mags it looks to be Aug 2010 of Nature,
I think we need to get our language squared away. I believe those tribes are matrilineal, not matriarchal.
It's a good one.My father used to subscribe to that magazine. I'll try to look it up in the Library.
If you are interested in evolution and evolutionary theory, here is brief but interesting article one the failure of radical adaptionism (as I might call it) to be supported by evidence.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00799.x/full
I think it contains significant implications for the "Selfish Gene" school.
Well, firstly reciprocal alturism is kind of a conflict of terms. Alturism implies it is not reciprocal. Mutually beneficial, like certain symbiotic relationships is a whole different problem.
I suggested the article has important implications for the selfish gene school. I did not suggest it bears directly on alturism. It does bear directly on the relationship between genes and adaptation(ism).
And with great respect, apes or monkeys inspecting each other for ticks has nothing to do with evolution, it is a behaviour which has no real impact on evolutionary outcomes. To influence evolutionary outcomes it must impact either a) the ability to survive or b) reproductive success. While it is an interesting behaviour you will be hard pressed to find a scientist or any evidence to suggest that this behaviour impacts evolutionary outcomes. The proponents of biological alturism or kin selection and their related theories are talking about something completely different.
