> ^^^^^^
> CB; To the extent that big brains, culture and
> science have now invented
> nuclear weapons, they have reached a prima facie
> point of _harming_ our
> adaptive fitness.
Quite true. Features that evolved because they were
adaptive in some environment may cease to be adaptive
in others.
>
> ^^^^^^
> CB: My historical-materialist explanation for
> sociobiology . . . , the bourgeoisie got some
> academics to start
> "sociobiology", which uses bourgeois concepts of
> human nature, and largely
> projects bourgeois social structures, such as rugged
> individuals,
> selfishness, inclination to war, and the like into
> the distant human past.
Is it tedious to insist that just because some thinkers use biology to defect reactionary hypotheses, that does not damn the idea that the explanation of human behavior have a biological component to leftist hell? First, not all, not even most, sociobiology operates the way Charles suggests. Nor does it have to. I don't use it that way.
Second, to the extent that some sociobiology may offer support for the fact there is a biological component to the explanation of less desirable human capacities, that may be true. It almost certainly is in fact true. If selfishness, etc. were not at least consistent with our biological capacities, these traits would not be realized in any environment.
Third, the ideological (setting aside the scientific) mistake in reactionary pop sociobiology is not biological. It is the anti-biological notion, inconsistent with biology, that if a trait has an explanation with a biological component that (a) that trait cannot be changed because it is rigidly manifested in all environments, and (b) is probably a good thing whose realization could be promoted.
As I have explained repeatedly on this list, (a) is a confusion that shows complete failure to grasp the essentials of genetics or evolutionary biology because traits are always manifested in environments, some and not all, and are the result of genetic predispositions of an organism to behave in or manifest some traits given environmental circumstances that are favorable to the trait. Further, (b) is not a biological hypothesis at all but a sort of quasi-ethical one which is so ridiculous that it cannot withstand being stated. The capacity to be infected with plague or HIV is a result of our genetics (as well as, of course, our behavior), and is not a trait that is to be celebrated.
Yes, my explanation does seem similar to Morris', minus the "Poleax" hypothesis, which seems pretty silly to me. Horizontality, it serves the function of preventing sperm from leaking out and that is adaptive, seems to be much more naturally explained by the fact that it hard to have sex standing up -- it can be done, but given gravity and human anatomy. And I do not think the upright stance is plausible explained by the reduction in leaking. As for orgasms exhausting the female, I think most women would say, We Wish! Most of you guys are not nearly so good!
>
>
> By the way, andie's hypothesis seems similar to
> Desmond Morris' hypothesis.
>
>
>
>
> The evolutionary purpose of orgasms
>
> Evolutionary biologists put forward several
> hypotheses for explaining the
> role of the female orgasm in terms of the
> reproductive process. In 1967,
> Desmond Morris first suggested in his pop-science
> book The Naked Ape that
> female orgasm evolved to encourage physical intimacy
> with a male partner and
> help reinforce the pair bond. Morris suggested that
> the relative difficulty
> in achieving female orgasm, in comparison to the
> male's, might be favourable
> in terms of Darwinian evolution by leading the
> female to select mates who
> bore the qualities of patience, care, imagination,
> intelligence and so
> forth, this in contradistinction to qualities such
> as size and aggression,
> which pertain to mate selection in other primates.
> Such advantageous
> qualities thereby become accentuated within the
> species, driven by the very
> differences between male and female orgasm. After
> all, were the male to be
> motivated by and taken to the point of orgasm in the
> same way as the female,
> those advantageous qualities would not be needed:
> self-interest would do the
> trick.
>
> He additionally proposed that orgasm might
> facilitate conception by
> exhausting the female and keeping her horizontal,
> thus preventing the sperm
> from leaking out. This possibility, sometimes dubbed
> the "Poleax hypothesis"
> or the "Knockout hypothesis", is now considered as
> highly doubtful
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgasm
>
>
>
>
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>
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