Tara

Of course rape is behavior; every movement our physical, human bodies make is termed "behavior." Behavior is determined by our genes interaction with our environment. Behavior is not separate from our genes.

What is a "psychological malfunction"? What is the cause of it? I think you're wrong in viewing rape as just something that went wrong in the human brain, like a machine gone haywire.

Certainly people have messed up brain chemistries from time to time that cause psychological disorders like depression, schizophrenia, etc. But this has a genetic factor, genes may have called for too little or too much brain chemical production.

Assuming rape isn't an adaptive behavior, rapists must have something either in there genes that makes them more aggressive/violent. Or they must have had a pretty messed up childhood (environment, culture) that leads them to some drastic behavior. Well, actually certainly both must be the case if you’re looking for a non-adaptive, non-sexual explanation of rape. What other explanation can there be? I don't think there are such things as "psychological dysfunctions" that are not genetics related.

I think we’ve probably wayyyyy oversimplified and there is probably a lot involved that leads a person to rape.

Dr Rick

Possibly, maybe even probably, but are you absolutely sure, Tara? Can you or anyone else identify, isolate, or even explain the genetic component(s) to an art-lover's appreciation of Monet, a clergy-member's vow of celibacy, a kleptomaniac's compulsion, an accountant's falsification of the company books, a woman getting an abortion, or a man wearing a condom?

Of what utility is this truism, even if it's correct, and what does it predict, how do we test it, and how could we potentially falsify it?

Knowing what something is not does not necessarily mean that we know what it is.

Rick

Koyaanisqatsi

No, it is not. Behavior has to with the will; with consciousness and the product of being "self-aware." If you can find me a gene that mandates consciousness, you might have a point. Simply by declaring that we are sacks of genes, however, does not explain "whence consciousness." As I mentioned before, current theories of consciousness are that it is emergent; i.e., it came as a result of the physical makeup of our brains, certainly and then crossed over at some point in human evolution to be more than just a sum of the parts; to be more than just instinct. At least, that's the theory.

Thus there is a qualitative difference between the meat and the consciousness that controls the behavior of the meat. There are some lower level examples of this in other animals as well. The domestication of dogs and cats, for example. Koko, the guerrilla (or was he an orangutan?) that was taught to use sign language to communicate, is another good example.

Whatever it is, there is definitely a qualitative and to some small degree quantifiable difference between acting on instinct and acting out of self-awareness; choosing between one course of action over another by reasoned analysis and weighing the "pros" and "cons" that we do not see evidence of in certain animals and do in others (porpoises--porpi?--too).

Well, technically nothing is "separate" from our genes, of course, in that our bodies are built from a genetic code, but that isn't the question or the distinction. That's like saying that a computer is nothing more than a set of technical blueprints.

Well, that depends on who you're asking. Ask a psychiatrist and they will say it's all brain chemistry. Ask a psychologist and they will say it's the result of a myriad of abstractions; a mother who didn't love enough; a father that was abusive; physical trauma; mental trauma; etc, etc., etc.

I don't think that and I agree with you. It is not necessarily the result of a machine gone haywire. By "malfunction" I was using a term in conjunction with the qualifier "psychological" to imply just this. My fault for not making it clearer or for using that term (if you'll recall, I had tried to qualify by stating afterward, "for lack of a better term").

Just as certainly as people have messed up lives and traumatic events in their lives from time to time that result in depression and can, IMO, also result in messed up brain chemistry. It's not an either/or proposition.

In shizophrenia, yes. In the case of paranoia or phobias as the possible result of childhood (mentally) traumatic events (such as watching your parents die or something equally horrific), no.

So the question is, where does rape fall in any of this. God Fearing has attempted to declare that rape is the result of a biological need to procreate. His own evidence, however, demonstrates that this is not the case, which necessarily means that the "answer" (if there is one) lies elsewhere.

Why? To fit your assumptions? Do you agree that it's possible to be more than just the sum of your parts? If not, then why aren't we all Einsteins? Or Picassos? Or Mozarts? Because we weren't genetically disposed to be great piano players? Then why weren't all of the Mozart family line equally adept at writing and playing music?

People often say about their offspring, "Oh, he gets that from his father's side" or the like, but is this actually true or merely a gross oversimplification?

I don't know, but I do know that, based on the evidence God Fearing presented, at least so far as rape is concerned, it is not the result of a biological need to procreate.

That, ipso facto means that the "answer" lies some place else, so while it may be interesting for us to discuss what other things may come as the result of our genetic blueprints, at least in this instance, the evidence points to some other explanation.

Indeed, that is certainly a factor, IMO. Most probably a very strong factor.

You are, respectfully, mistaken. There are many "psychological dysfunctions" that indeed have little to nothing to do with genetics any more than crashing a car has anything to do with the engineer's blueprints or even the mechanic's manufacture and upkeep of the car.

Multiple Personality Syndrome is an excellent example. It is a dissociative disorder of the psyche that usually comes as the result of serious mental (and/or physical) abuse, typically at a young age.

I agree and have argued as much throughout. The one thing that has been demonstrated, however, is that rape is not the result of a biological need to procreate (i.e., the sociobiological theory that God Fearing keeps championing in spite of his own evidence to the contrary).

Tara

It just occurred to me that this issue of rape is so confusing (to me) because rape is a *difference* among individuals, rather than a similarity. Trying to explain*differences* among individuals seems poles apart from trying to explain similarities.

I view rape as just another form of criminality, which, like schizophrenia, isn't a universal human feature. But universally, all humans have the same architecture; the same legs, arms, brain. More so, we all have the same psychological adaptations (mechanisms for vision, pain, learning, etc.). All of these similarities can be explained by adaptive theory, while rape, something I think we can agree is not universal seems much less tangible.

But, wait, *light bulb moment*, if I can say that rape is not a similarity among individuals, it would follow that it’s not adaptive, right? For traits/behaviors to be adaptions they must be present universally among the species, no??

What I mean when I say everything (behavior included) has a genetic component is that everything we do depends on our body. And our body is a result of our genes (and environmental factors). So when a person rapes, the cognition involved is necessarily dependent on the neural mechanisms of the brain. Everything we do and perceive must go thru our brain, no? So, yes, that everything in some sense is dependant on genes and is thus “genetic” is a useless truism.

True..... but that doesn’t keep me from wanting to know.

pz

No, sorry. Take, for example, the Apo-AIM mutation which gives people protection against heart disease. I'd say that's probably adaptive, but it is only found in about 30 people in the world.Now you're beginning to sound like me, so you must be approaching the truth.

You've actually hit on the best resolution to the nature:nurture controversy. The distinction is nonsense. Genes don't build people, the complex interactions between genes and environment build people. Whenever we focus on one aspect alone as causal, we completely lose sight of the actual cause, which is the dynamic interplay between multiple agents.

Tara

Oh, because I'm sounding more like you, I must be approaching the *truth* j/k

How can a trait be an adaptation and not be present in most of the population? I thought, by definition, an adaptation was a trait, that when possessed made an organism more reproductively fit, thereby passing the trait onto another generation and another.... causing the trait to become more and more abundant in the population. Anyone want to venture to explain how an adaptation can only appear in a very small part of a population?

Maybe if it's in the early stages of selection?

Tara

So if the Apo-AIM mutation is beneficial and is only present in a small portion of the population now, in successive decades/centuries/whenever it will be more and more common, correct?

Well, rape couldn't possibly be attributed to a recent genetic mutation, I wouldn't think. So I don't see how this disproves my argument that rape, not being universal (or at all common) male behavior, couldn't be an adaptation.

cricket

Not necessarily; that's my (uneducated) guess. Isn't it difficult nowadays for a feature that's only 30-people strong to get much of a toe-hold? Since there are so many of us now, and mating habits and the results (children) are often so geographically scattered.

?

ps418

Its a truism that all genes are expressed in some environment, and therefore every phenotype is the result of an interplay of genes and environment. To add to the complexity, there are also gene-gene interactions, environment-environment interactions, and gene-environment interactions. Nevertheless, there are many cases where the range of environments experienced by humans appears to have very little or no effect on the expression of a phenotype, while genetic differences have a very large effect. So though it is true that any phenotype is the result of an interaction between genes and environments, it may be the case that the variance in that phenotype between individuals is the result of environmental differences, or genetic differences, or as is more often the case, both.

To nitpick, it is certainly not true that all behavioral differences have a genetic component. For instance, my speaking english rather than some other language is a behavior difference with no genetic component.

Rape is quite obviously a behavior, and behavior need not have anything to do with will or consciousness (e.g. the behavior of bacteria or nematodes), if by behavior you mean something like "the actions or reactions of a person or animal in response to external or internal stimuli," which is what psychologists mean by the term.

Patrick

ps418

Keep in the mind that population need not mean the whole species; and what is an adaptation depends upon the environment, and the environment is different from place to place. For instance, their are a variety of molecular adaptations to infectious disease agents that are nearly fixed in one geographic population, but essentially completely absent in other geographic populations. For instance, homozygosity for the null allele of Duffy antigen receptor confers complete resistance to malarial infection by Plasmodium vivax. About 1 million children die every year in Africa from malaria, BTW. Therefore this allele is under strong positive selection and is obviously beneficial in environments where Plasmodium vivax is common, but in other environments it may be under no positive selection pressure at all. As a result, the null allele is nearly fixed in Africa, but very rare outside of Africa.

"An adaptation is an anatomical, physiological, or behavioral trait that contributes to an individual's ability to survive and reproduce ("fitness") in competition with conspecifics in the environment in which it evolved" (Williams, G. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection Princeton).

Patrick