tronvillain

Well, I haven't spent too much time in E&C lately, but I like to think I do reasonably well when I do. *chuckle*

dangin

I do reasonably well to, particulary when arguing with someone who doesn't understand evolution. That's my forte. Beating up on children and the ill-informed.

Salmon of Doubt

Ahh, (cracks knuckes) ok, I'll try again.

Ok then, I have to ask you to decribe the exact mechanism by which evolution would accomplish this? You can see for yourself that most people do not engage solely in reproductive sex, and other people don't solely perform oral sex, etc. Humans enjoy variety. So if people generally engage in all types of sex, how can evolution distinguish between them? Someone only has to have reproductive sex a couple of times to successfully pass on their genes, and most people do, so I really don't understand how you believe evolution can accomplish this amazing feat of 'directing' sexual activity.

Well for a start, I'm sure I remember reading about some tribal peoples around today who still haven't made the connection.

Also, why would people have completely switched away from reproductive sex?! People still have children today, don't they? Why would they stop having children just because they realised that they could?

Having children would be a benefit for ancient humans, not just a chore. Yes, it takes a lot of resources to raise a child, but you get rewards afterwards. You get some close relatives who will be allies with you in any fights or arguments. You get some people who will be very important in catching food for the group when you get older, and who will be willing to share the food they've caught with you. In third world countries this is still obvious, as people have children because those children can work and bring in food and money. Even when contraception is available, those people still need children to help provide for the family.

I grant you that if people were using anal and oral sex as a total alternative to reproductive sex, those people would die out, and not pass genes on. But why would they do that, when reproductive sex is just as enjoyable as other sexual experiences, and children are helpful?

And don't go on and on about how YOU want sex and not kids. That is a modern perspective and therefore has no place in a debate about evolution.

So? This is a modern phenomenon. We don't need children to provide for us any more. Modern systems of work, abundant food, and money mean that we can look after ourselves, or pay someone to look after us in a nursing home when we get really old. Children are now a luxury- we don't NEED to have them, but if we want them we can have them. And people DO want children still. We're not having as many, but people still have kids, and they ALSO have oral sex. And this is a healthy, natural part of sexual relationships with others.

And what does that have to do with guilt? I believe this WAS the point of this discussion?


Well, madam, actually.

No, we don't know their intentions, as we don't know how well early humans could think, or how good their reasoning processes were. We don't know when it was that they made the link between sex and pregnancy, and we don't know if they put a higher importance on sex or children. We DO know that some people did have children, and we are their descendents. The people who HAD children either liked having sex, or liked having children.


Why?

Ok, say you're right, and all men just want sex, and all those billions of happy caring fathers out there are all freaks of nature. So what? How does that have any bearing on guilt?


To drag it back to the original topic, say, for example, that one individual ancient man figured out that sex meant babies, and he couldn't see an advantage in that, and didn't want to have any babies. So he goes around with various women having oral sex and whatever, and therefore does not have children. His genes are then lost.

Another guy is around, he likes sex too, he likes lots of sex, with a variety of positions and methods, and EITHER he likes reprodictive sex too, OR he sees the advantage of children OR he thinks it might be quite nice to have a child because their cute. Whatever his reasons, he ends up with a child.

And there's a third guy. He likes sex, but he feels guilty about having any kind of sex that isn't ordinary vagninal sex with a woman. That's all he does, and therefore he has children too.

We are the descendents of people who acted like the second and the third men. It is irrelevant to evolution which of these things occurred, as they both produce children.


If you want to carry on, these are my hypotheses, extended a little further. They are not as obvious, and I don't have proof of them, but bear with me for a sec.

When you consider the attractiveness of a man to a woman, the social aspects are just as important as whether he has strong muscles and can bring in lots of meat. She wants someone who is good in the group, and who she likes. Someone who can give her lots of pleasurable sex will also be an important selecting factor. In this case, man#2 will be at an advantage. He's better at sex, because he doesn't feel guilty at other sexual interactions like oral sex. They have a good and varied sex life, and they have kids. On the other hand, a man who feels guilty about sex won't be as good a lover, and therefore won't be as desirable.


If oral sex really was such a terrible thing for a species to engage in, don't you think we would feel far more than guilt over it? Wouldn't systems would have emerged in our brains to make us feel absolutely disgusted at the idea of it? If it wasn't even arousing, no-one would do it. And yet people do! People do it a lot, and they enjoy doing it.


HOW?! You haven't explained how you think this could happen!

Go and read up on the subject.


I'm studying BSc Biology at Cardiff University, including such modules as Vertebrate Evolution. What biology courses have you taken?

The reason males are not more intelligent than females is that we are largely monogamous, and therefore the differences between the sexes are small. The more polygamous a species, the greater the sex differences. That is information readily available in any text book.


Please, I urge you to go and read this book. A few years ago I myself probably would have been rather dubious about anyone claiming the things I have been stating, but this book makes a very convincing case. I'm sure I can't possibly convince you of these things in a brief internet argument, because I don't have the relevent evidence from anthropology to hand. But everything in the book I read made perfect sense, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in this.


Why didn't we evolve wings or gills?

At what phase in our evolution are you talking about? Are you talking about when the Amphibia diverged from the Crossopterigii, using the skin and buccal cavities to breathe from rather than gills? Or when the reptilian Cotylosaurs diverged from the basal Amphibia? Because if you're talking about the Therapsida and Mammalia, gills would be a rather large step to make considering the animals were fully adapted to terrestrial evironments. Even the cetaceans (whales) haven't been able to evolve gills.

Wings- well, the Chiroptera- the bats, managed to evolve wings, but the Primata were already evolving into larger creatures by then, which really precludes the addition of wings to a heavy body. The brain is a useful tool, but if it was so supremely amazing and useful, you would expect the other apes to have followed suit, just like different species of mammals have taken to life in water to exploit available niches there.

And yes, I'm studying Biology at Cardiff University in Wales, England. My exam results for the module in vertebrate evolution should be released soon, I'd be delighted to tell you what they are, as they're predicted to be rather high.

If you want to put forward a mechanism for how evolution could use guilt to persuade people to engage in reproductive sex at the exclusion of other types of sexual interaction, I could always bring it to the attention of Professor Ferns, who teaches this module.

I understand that a lot of what I've been saying you would probably find dubious. So I'd rather parts of the argument aside for now until you go and read the book I recommended earlier. But I am still very curious to know how YOU think evolution could achieve this.


Ok. I'm trying to prove here that guilt could not evolve in the way you say. As you know, proving that something does NOT happen is far harder than proving it can. I don't know enough about comparative cultures to prove that the basis of guilt is religion, I simply think it is, as it's the only explanation left.

Please state how you think 'nature' 'persuades' people to have reproductive sex. Do you even know enough about evolution to do that?

Evolution is brought about by whether you pass your genes on or not. If you are strong and healthy, interact successfully in your social group, and are attractive enough to the opposite sex, you will succeed in passing your genes on. If you are weak and sick, a social outcast and very unattractive, you probably won't pass your genes on.

I would say that a person skilled at sexual interaction of all types would be more attractive than someone who is not. Do you disagree?

Salmon of Doubt

Whoops, I realised I'd got confused when i was answering one of your questions, and now it's too late for me to edit.

I wouldn't want you to think I'm not a serious biologist now, would I? So I thought I'd clarify something that I got confused about before because I was trying to watch TV at the same time.

Ok, technically we have already had gills in our past. All the early vertebrates had gills, and if I remember correctly, in the embryos of mammals, including humans, a stage can be seen which clearly has gills. The gills disappear quickly, and the lungs develop instead.

What I was trying to say earlier was that the Mammalia are descended from the Cotylosaurs, which are descended from the Amphibia which are descended from the Crossopterygii. The Crossopterygii had gills, so technically in our evolution we DID have gills

If you're talking about why mammals haven't gone BACK to gills, this is what would be a rather large step to make considering the mammals are fully adapted to terrestrial environments. Even the cetaceans (whales) haven't been able to evolve gills, because it was easier to alter the capacity of the lungs, and increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the red blood cells.

This is pretty irrelevant to the discussion, but I didn't want to leave an obvious misunderstanding which could create an easy opening for you to attack my biological knowledge.

luvluv

Salmon:

Firstly, you proved yourself to me, as far as your credentials go. But that stuff about intelligence evolving because it was attractive, and not because it was useful, seems whacky to me. Is it an accepted theory or is it disputed?

And is it or is it not true that the primary deciding factor in evolution is what organism SURVIVES long enough to reproduce. Would it matter if female humans liked dumb humans if the dumb humans all walked off the edge of a cliff before they were old enough to mate? Couldn't it be the case that the intelligent males were the only ones who lived long enough to mate?

Well, I envision there could have been a decadent period (not unlike the one we are currently in) where humans were just smart enough to figure out where babies came from and to begin in engaging in ways of satisfying their urges without risk of pregnancy. Up shoots a neanderthal (so to speak) who feels disgust (what we might call shame) at these activities and prefers it the old fashioned way. He outbreeds his more frisky neighbors and his children also develop this distaste for these behaviors. The pre-humans with no qualms about having only anal sex leave no progeny behind and the humans with some scupples win out.

Sure, but these are longer term considerations. The male would still have to wait about 15 or 16 YEARS before he could expect any returns on this child, and back then I'm sure the life expectancy wasn't much over 30. This is also assuming that the child is a male, in pre-history a female would have likely been only another mouth to feed (no offense) or a potential source of other mouths to feed in the form of grandchildren. It seems very likely to me that pre-humans could have wanted to avoid children in the short term.

You certainly do need children to provide for you. They might not be YOUR children, but somebody needs to keep working and paying taxes to pay for your healthcare and other social programs. In America, for instance, we are going to be in for a financial disaster when the baby boomers retire, because there are not enough people left paying taxes to pay for their social security benefits. (There used to be 35 taxpayers for every retiree in America, when the baby boomers retire there will be 3 taxpayers for every retiree.) We might THINK we don't need children anymore, but our societies definitely need to repopulate themselves or they will fall into disaster. It is only a matter of one degree of seperation.

In 1000 years, the people who will still be around will probably not be the descendants of white westerners with white western values. They will be the descendants of catholics and conservatives (scary as that is). Technically, this isn't evolution (this is just a thought I am having) but white western culture is in the process of dying out. It is hardly surprising that a culture with extensive contraceptive options (including abortion) would eventually depopulate itself relative to cultures who either do not believe in or have no access to contraception. So we are seeing today, after a manner of speaking, an evolutionary process by which nature might select those for those whose sexuality is focused into procreative activities and against those for whom sexuality is recreation. My idea is that such an era might have occured in the past and that in such an era pre-humans evolved a system of moral impulses which guided them towards procreative sexuality.

And I call you to remember, since this discussion is getting way off topic, that my original idea was not that these feelings evolved primarily to select against oral/anal sex (which I said in my first post I didn't even want to get into) but against promiscuous sex. My original point (this was explicitly mentioned in my first post if you read it through to the end) was that the moral feelings guided a person to want to primarily focus his sexual activities primarily towards someone they were willing to be committed to. I said that within these bounds the prohibitive moral feelings were not likely to be as strong. My primary point was that the moral feelings of caring and the desire for comitmment produced the moral systems surrounding sexuality (infidelity, promiscuity, etc.). Those feeling of the desire for commitment were my essential point, and were the primary factors I saw guiding sexuality... not an aversion to oral/anal sex.

You are kind of loading the case on your side by suggesting that the human has to have an overwhelming guilt complex in my theory. All that would be required would be that at a certain point he would feel some sense of guilt about fulfilling his sexual desires SOLELY through anal/oral sex. Such a human would outbreed his counterpart with no such qualms and such a triffling distaste for too much anal/oral sex would probably not have a significant impact on female choice. (And again I ask how significant was female choice in early humanoid mating patterns?)

And again, my primary point was that there would be emotional feelings pushing the male towards COMMITMENT. A male willing to display a tendency towards commitment would be likely to be as attractive (if not more) to a prospective female as a notoriously promiscuous mate who was not a good provider. (As a male, I am familiar with the old wedding ring trick. It still works. Wedding rings make men more attractive.)

My argument about how these feelings could have also applied to anal/oral sex was a SECONDARY point. I was originally arguing against the notion that man, in his natural state, was a free-loving being, and that monogamy and other sexual restraints are alien concepts imposed on him totally from without. My argument was that our disdain for promiscuous behavior probably has natural roots in evolution.

Again, oral sex/anal sex was not my main point. Everyone here seems to have fixated on this, but I never was arguing specifically for the evolutionary origin of prohibitions against oral sex and sodomy.

Even my extended point was not about people who performed oral sex occasionally or as foreplay, but people who engaged in it as a total alternative. Don't you think people would feel a little disgusted or weird at least at that proposition? That a fully functioning person would only have oral sex for the rest of his life to avoid having children. It doesn't seem so absurd to me that this might stir a moral reaction in the person.

Okay, what exactly did you mean when you asked why other animals hadn't evolved guilt feelings? You seem to be well aware of the wealth of reasons why some organisms evolve certain adaptive strategys and others don't. You seem to understand that there is no problem with a species developing a unique adaptation which actually works. So what is the problem with human beings having a moral sense about their sexuality, particularly when they are the ONLY species whose progeny survives by LEARNING. Wouldn't that unique factor require unique strategies?

Salmon of Doubt

Sorry for the lateness of my reply, I had lots of work to do, and frankly, I got a bit bored with this debate.

OK, so we're talking about fidelity. A good measure of monogamy, like I said before, is the size difference between the sexes. If we had truly evolved from monogamous ancestors, and if that was the ideal situation for humans, males and females would be exactly the same size, with no differences. But, as you can see, males are averagely taller than females. There is not a huge difference, but there is enough to indicate that the natural state of humans is to be slightly polygamous. This could be from having more than one monogamous relationship in a lifetime, or from sleeping around a little bit.

Do swans need moral values to make them mate for life? No. Do peacocks have moral values to make them mate with lots of partners? No. Some strategies have proved advantageous for some species, and other strategeies for others.

The feeling of a desire for commitment is a real thing, and I don't deny that this could evolve, and could even be the main mechanism in making humans primarily monogamous. But I don't see why this necessarily precludes having a few relationships before settling down to a long term partner, or having relations with people of the same sex.

I don't think you can make an argument for saying that moral values evolved to force people to have one monogamous relationship with someone of the same sex. I think we do have a tendency towards having a series of monogamous relationships, probably of an average lifespan of between 7 and 10 years, as this would be the important time for raising a child.

I think religion has imposed the notion of a life-long monogamous relationship on people, and not that it has evolved. If it had evolved, men and women would be more similar, simple as that.

luvluv

Salmon of Doubt:

By ancestors do you mean pre-homo sapien ancestors or homo-sapien ancestors? I'm only arguing that the emotional responses around the uses of our sexuality (like guilt over cheating, for example) have naturalistic origins. I'm not arguing that monagamy is the natural state of man. That's obviously way off base. (From the Christian point of view it is the most desirable state of man, but even on the Christian viewpoint it is not the natural state of man. Christianity is very emphatic about the natural state of man being in most ways sinful [if you'll pardon the expression])

Right but swans and peacocks and all other animals that are not human beings do so by instinct. How do you get animals who operate by thinking and making decisions to mate for life?

I never said that it did. Only that feelings of guilt that come from operating outside of commitment could have their origins in nature, not in the imposition of religion.

I assume you meant opposite sex. No, I don't think morals evolved to force people to have one monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex. (I don't believe morals evolved at all, really, I'm just saying all this stuff for the purpose of this discussion) I don't think thinking animals can be forced to anything. But I believe that nature could have developed mechanisms to influence our choice in such a way that selects for us choosing committed relationships.

Well, again I am not arguing that life-long monogamy is natural. You are probably right that life-long monogamy is a religious idea. But my point was that guilt feelings for non-commital uses of sexuality could be natural. As for the size differences, I too do not actually believed that morals evolved. (while it is possible to me that human beings did. My take on the whole fall of Adam story in the Bible, what with Adam becoming aware of good and evil and whatnot, is an allegorical description of man becoming a reasoning animal. So I tend to believe that a moral sense was more or less given man once he evovled to be a rational creature, not that it slowly developed.)

Salmon of Doubt

It really does depend on which uses you're talking about. Cheating, well, maybe. Oral sex or homosexual sex? No, there is no mechanism for that to evolve.

Evolution may have incorporated some mechanisms like the desire for intimacy and compainionship to promote these long term relationships.

But here I think incentives like pleasure will have a much greater chance of influencing people than guilt. Maybe a desire for intimacy AND guilt about non commited sexual relationships can both have the same effect- persuading people to engage in long term relationships. However, the desire for intimacy will probably tend to act quicker and have a more definite, positive effect.

I concede the point that guilt over short term relationships COULD evolve. Whether it did, or is likely to evolve is a different story. But I don't think it is as strong a factor in determining our sexual policies as religion is.

tronvillain

Still no response for me luvluv?

dangin

Of course not, unless he can deflect a good question into some tangential argument that means nothing re the original question he is trapped.

Which reminds me, luvluv is the perfect illustration of why creationism/intelligent design is shit for science.

They start with a "fact". In luvluv's case it is that god prefers monogamy, and then they build backwards from that "fact" and try to make science help them. While ignoring all the real science that makes their argument seem ludicrous.