The most important study investigating sexual selection theory has been painstakingly recreated and found to be completely invalid. From Science Daily:
A classic study from more than 60 years ago suggesting that males are more promiscuous and females more choosy in selecting mates may, in fact, be wrong, say life scientists who are the first to repeat the historic experiment using the same methods as the original.
In 1948, English geneticist Angus John Bateman published a study showing that male fruit flies gain an evolutionary advantage from having multiple mates, while their female counterparts do not. Bateman’s conclusions have informed and influenced an entire sub-field of evolutionary biology for decades.
Bateman’s Principle states that females are choosy because there is little advantage to their mating with multiple males. This is the cornerstone of Darwin’s sexual selection theory. The new study was led by Patricia Adair Gowaty, a distinguished professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA.
In the original experiment, Bateman isolated equal numbers of male and female fruit flies, and then checked the offspring’s genetic features to see how many males had reproduced. Because they did not have the ability to examine DNA, Bateman used flies with severe genetic mutations instead to see how they would show up in offspring. However, there was a “fatal flaw” in his analysis. Bateman assigned paternity based on flies with double mutations, ignoring the flies with zero or one mutations. Consequently, Bateman was unable to accurately quantify the number of mates for each subject. Oddly, he assigned more offspring to males than females, an impossibility. Bateman concluded:
1) The variation in number of mates for males was greater than for females.
2) The males show direct proportionality between number of mates and fertility… The females, provided they have been mated with at least once, show absolutely no effect of number of mates.
In recreating the experiment with DNA analysis, Gowaty et al found that the data were “decidedly inconclusive.”
Here was a classic paper that has been read by legions of graduate students, any one of whom is competent enough to see this erro. Bateman’s results were believed so wholeheartedly that the paper characterized what is and isn’t worth investigating in the biology of female behavior.
Repeating key studies is a tenet of science, which is why Bateman’s methodology should have been retried as soon as it became important in the 1970s. Those who blindly accept that females are choosy while males are promiscuous might be missing a big piece of the puzzle.
Our worldviews constrain our imaginations. For some people, Bateman’s result was so comforting that it wasn’t worth challenging. I think people just accepted it.
Gowaty believes that women are naturally more promiscuous and less choosy than Darwin originally thought.
“Darwin, and later Bateman, cleaved to the notion that females of a species tended to be discriminating and passive, while the far more promiscuous males competed for their attentions. In the last few decades, however, evolutionary biologists have shown that the story is far more complicated. Gowaty, who has been interested in female mating habits in insects and birds since the beginning of her career, spent 30 years in the field studying Eastern bluebirds. She published the first molecular genetics study showing that females in a socially monogamous species mated outside their traditional pairs regularly.
Gowaty describes the benefits of multiple mates as an answer to the never-ending evolutionary struggle against what may be the world’s greatest predator: disease…In this illness-driven arms race, organisms that produce offspring from multiple mates are more likely to produce some children with the right antibodies to survive the next generation of viruses, bacteria and parasites…For Gowaty, there are many open questions remaining when it comes to female mating habits, whether in fruit flies or other organisms.”
Though Gowaty is the first to recreate Bateman’s experiment, there have long been questions about Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Bateman’s statement that “there is nearly always a combination of an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females” is demonstrably false, since females of many species mate with several males. Here are several other aspects of Bateman’s Principle that have long been in question:
Females can be promiscuous.
1. Females in many species do have more offspring when they mate with a larger number of males.
2. Mating with multiple males increases the likelihood of finding the strongest genetic compatibility.
3. Offspring fitness increases with heterogeneous mating, i.e. hybrid vigor. Females sneak copulations with men outside the group.
4. Many female mammals seek multiple partners to confuse paternity and prevent infanticide by the father.
5. In some species, copulation and fertilization are separated by several months. Females hedge their bets by mating with several males in order to increase the likelihood of fertilization.
Sperm is not always cheap.
6. In some species, sperm require substantial energy to produce enough to fertilize the female’s eggs.
7. Some species require repeated copulations to stimulate ovulation. A female lion may require 100 copulations from one male to initiate pregnancy.
8. Some species reverse roles, with males doing the majority of the parental care.
9. In some species, males prioritize mate guarding over sexual variety, challenging Bateman’s finding that males are more reproductively successful with more mating partners.
10. Species that spawn have either equal investment by both sexes, or in some cases, the production of gametes requires more energy from males.
Male display is often a warning rather than a pickup line.
11. Evolutionary musicologist Joseph Jordania has observed that many species display bright colors, ornaments, vocalizations, and various antics as warning displays. According to him, most of these warning displays were erroneously attributed to the forces of sexual selection.
There is certainly ample evidence in our own society that unrestrained female sexuality increases promiscuity, so perhaps this should come as no surprise. Still, I find the implications of this rather dizzying. While the theory of sexual selection has not been disproved, its most important study has been, returning us to the realm of unconfirmed hypotheses.
If promiscuity is reproductively advantageous for both sexes, then both should regard monogamous commitment as a sacrifice, or at least a tradeoff. In a time when women’s earning power is climbing steadily, the potential effects of women’s choosing multiple mating partners may already be observed.
- What will this mean for the family?
- Are we headed for a Bacchanalian nightmare that makes hookup culture look like child’s play?
- Will it be economics that ultimately drives us back into monogamy?
- Will the pendulum swing back soon, or will a crisis in number of surviving offspring be required to change course?
- What does this mean for HUSsies and others who prefer the intimate love relationship to the “zipless f*ck?” Will they succeed in creating and sustaining the relationships they crave?
Don’t kill the messenger, but if monogamy is unnatural from a biological standpoint, and all the baggage around female promiscuity really is cultural, then the next hundred years or so should be interesting and frightening.
For the record, this doesn’t change a thing I’ve been recommending here for 3+ years. If it’s monogamy, marriage and family you want, you can still have it using the same strategies. But hurry. We may be the 21st century equivalent of the Pompeiians, witnesses to the volcanic eruption that was the Sexual Revolution.
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At the risk of stating the obvious, human females aren’t fruit flies. They generally only carry one child at a time, and the investment in that child in terms of reproductive opportunity is quite substantial (9 month term plus caring for the child for years). Thus, the “genetic variety” that the fruitfly gets by being promiscuous can only be attained by human females through multiple pregancies with different mates (i.e., what the manosphere calls serial monogamy). That won’t meaningfully lessen the need to be as choosy as possbile for each mate.
Another good reason to avoid marriage…..
“Repeating key studies is a tenet of science”
Actually, I think that repeating key studies is a tenet of science as taught in high-school science classes. There seems to be a lot less REAL repeating going on, for the obvious reason that careers are not very much enhanced by re-doing someone else’s old study.
I’m not surprised, but only because I recently read most of Sex at Dawn. It attempts to debunk these standard narrative of evolutionary psychology, mostly sexual evolutionary psychology.
Since so many of your fantastic posts seem to relate to the “standard narrative”, I humbly submit that it would be a great book for you to read, Ms Walsh.
“human females aren’t fruit flies”
egg. zact. ly.
When human females are promiscuous it is only because it easy for them to be since even the most desirable men are not so discriminating when it comes to offering up intercourse…
Throughout history far fewer men survived long enough to have children than women, and I suspect some women traded monogomy for support from their partner while other women “slept around” so their children would have the greatest variety of the highest quality genes. The women who picked monogomy were (probably) more numerous and more successful, but the promiscuous women were also fairly successful.
Thousands of years of competition between these two strategies led to social norms being formed to protect the more dominant strategy …
Even in the highly promiscuous society we live in the dominant strategy is still monogomy, although periodic monogomy seems to be a fairly common strategy today
>>“human females aren’t fruit flies”
In my town, you could have fooled me!
>>Will it be economics that ultimately drives us back into monogamy?
In two or three generations, I doubt any men will get married unless it’s forced by the State – the system will break up and perhaps reform with more equitable laws and rights for men. Marriage with rights and responsibilities and with fault divorces informing splits, becomes the new norm.
“if monogamy is unnatural from a biological standpoint, and all the baggage around female promiscuity really is cultural, then…”
a woman has to decide if she wants men as they are and choose between the easy promiscuity or something else because men do not have to and clearly have no reason to give a rats ass what any “study” concludes culturally, biologically or otherwise with flies, snails, roaches, hippos….. or even human females.
Human female promiscuity means the absence of pregnancy. This was proven with feminism. Higher restrictions on female mating means more monogamy, more marriage, and more children.
With your questions based on higher earning potential of women and higher promiscuity.
What will this mean for the family? Less children, less marriage, less monogamy.
Are we headed for a Bacchanalian nightmare that makes hookup culture look like child’s play? Not yet. I think it reached its limits.
Will it be economics that ultimately drives us back into monogamy? Based on what?
Will the pendulum swing back soon, or will a crisis in number of surviving offspring be required to change course? Not really; however, there could be a rise of religious societies that values children. This bodes well for Christian and Muslim societies and not so much for secular and atheist socieities.
What does this mean for HUSsies and others who prefer the intimate love relationship to the “zipless f*ck?” Will they succeed in creating and sustaining the relationships they crave? They will continue to do the self destructive things unless they wake up before too late and end up with cats.
While I do think evolutionary psychology is a great starting point for people to understand the current SMP and learn the “red pill truths”… I think it’s easy to get too wrapped up in it.
EP might describe our base instincts, but we’ll never be stripped down to those base instincts ever again. There’s always going to be economic, social, political, and technological climates that significantly change the SMP. I think they have a far larger impact on the SMP than the biological base.
As far as today’s SMP and the general trajectory of Western Civ… I think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. But I hope I’m wrong.
“They will continue to do the self destructive things unless they wake up before too late and end up with cats.”
Such self destruction only applies to the cat collectors. The non collectors know damn well they can have worthy life mates who never even heard of the SMP.
@Ms. Walsh:
This is a very, very interesting topic!
Let’s dive right in.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about Prof. Gowaty:
“Patricia Adair Gowaty is an American evolutionary biologist. She received her B.A. in biology at Tulane University and her PhD in zoology at Clemson University in 1980. She is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.[1]
Gowaty is known for her many articles about human and animal behavior and evolution. She is author and editor of a book that seeks to combine feminist theory and Darwinian evolutionary biology.[2] She has also written about the effects of and importance of rape in understanding human evolution.[3] Her recent research has focused on the concept of reproductive compensation in population genetics.[4][5]
Gowaty is married to biologist Stephen P. Hubbell, with whom she has co-authored many journal articles about ecology and evolutionary biology.[6]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Adair_Gowaty
Here’s a YouTube presentation of Prof. Gowaty in action:
Why Darwin Still Matters – Patricia Gowaty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ETa5sxjsis
Here’s her major work, “Feminism and Evolutionary Biology – Boundaries, intersections and frontiers”, available at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Feminism-Evolutionary-Biology-Boundaries-intersections/dp/0412073617
And finally, Prof. Gowaty is mentioned in the book, Sex at Dawn. I couldn’t find anything that featured a back and forth between Prof. Gowaty and Prof. David Buss; nor could I find any mention of Gowaty in Buss’ textbook, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of The Mind.
Having set all that up, let me now address the post and the questions you have raised…
While I have heard of Gowaty I must admit that I have not read much of her work, though I am familiar with other evo-psychologists and biologists of a Feminist ideological bent or leaning; to be frank, I am a bit dubious of their ability to put reason, logic and evidence ahead of their ideology.
Prof. Gowaty, per your post today, doesn’t seem to be an exception. She is essentially making the case that Females (read: even Human ones) deliberately have different kids by different Males (read: Human guys) for the purpose of, for lack of a better term “sexy son” genes, if you will. Of course, and at least insofar as your post has it above Ms. Walsh, Prof. Gowaty doesn’t address problems of paternity certainty and investment, Male intrasexual competition, and so forth. If you happen to have any information along these lines, I would love to see what, if anything, Gowaty has to say about this.
In the meantime, I would like to propose the following: we can test Prof. Gowaty’s theories with humans, right now.
It’s called Black America.
In his book, Is Marriage fo White People: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone, Stanford Law Prof. Ralph Richard Banks addresses the issue of out of wedlock pregnancy in the Black community, particularly a rather peculiar aspect of it – the instance of Black Women having “multiple bab daddies” – that is to say, birthing children sired by different Men, and not married to either.
Banks finds that such arrangements are particularly fraught with all manner of emotional strife and tension, and, he finds that instead of the mother getting the financial support of both Men (assuming there’s only two such baby daddies), SHE WINDS UP GETTING NOTHING FROM EITHER. Banks concludes from this, that little to nothing good can come from such arrangements, personally or for the kids or indeed, the community and country at large. The evidence as we would have it, along an entire spectrum of indices, would seem to concur.
Of course, it is possible that scholars like Gowaty and others would suggest that there are or were, societies were Males acted differently towards their children and the Women/mothers whom they interacted with; the problem, of course, is that not only are such societies few and far between, but those societies, rare as they are, are hardly what any of us would consider to be advanced in any meaningful way.
All that said, are Women promiscuous? Quite a few are. Do they have the capacity to cheat? Sure.
But is that, or the kinds of mating strategies Gowaty is proposing something that Women themselves would actually want to engage in? I’m not seeing the evidence.
I would love to see a debate between Buss and Gowaty – or for that matter between Pinker and Gowaty.
I’ll hold here.
Holla back
O.
“the kinds of mating strategies Gowaty is proposing something that Women themselves would actually want to engage in”
She is the scientific version of Amanda Marcotte. Nothing more…
De. bunked.
Ah bless, the anti intellectuals struggling to hold onto their pet theories justifying sexism and patriarchy.
How unedifying. Perhaps the gentlemen here should join the rest of us humans that knew the ‘double standard’ was manure years ago.
You can retain your membership to the “Flat Earth Society” for as long as you wish but to do so; is but the hallmark of feeble minded eccentricity.
@Passer By
I was hoping someone would start the discussion with this! I admit that when I learned of this study I started actually reading about natural and sexual selection a bit, and I couldn’t believe how much of Darwin’s theories are based on flowers, and stick insects, and all kinds of crazy species.
It does sound insane that a fruit fly experiment would be the underpinning for sexual selection, but that is literally the only scientific study that supports the claim that men thrive with more partners and women with fewer, reproductively speaking.
And look how ingrained these beliefs are!
What do you think Ferdinand and Isabella said when Columbus didn’t fall off the earth?
I love the feminist ‘scientits’ who cling to the blank slate theory, all sexuality is from society. Wave as many brain scans and autopsy analyses showing differences in structure and composition – no result, zip, nada. Dogma rules…
Once you depart ALL of the REAL evidence, you must stop calling it science, best case? call it an ology. Sociology, climatology…that stuff
@Susan:
This is a wonderful opportunity to mention two of my favourite articles in this area. In short, studies which are not heavily replicated (and there are reasons why they generally aren’t) and especially observational studies are notoriously unreliable. Therefore it is unsurprising that the effect failed to be replicated, especially when better experimental design and procedures were used.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
I’m just quite happy someone actually got around to duplicating the original study. Of course, it will take a couple more iterations before we can really say whether or not the results are conclusively different from the null (however we choose to define it).
If I had to lay money on it, I would bet the variation within the groups is larger than the variation between the groups where humans are concerned.
I think chimpanzee mating habits would be a better match.
Animal behaviors are based on intricate conditions peculiar to a their particular make up and evolutionary niche, otherwise observing spiders one could extrapolate that all females want to consume their mates after coitus.
@david foster
That must explain why the study wasn’t repeated back in 72 or whenever. The history of the Bateman study is pretty interesting, and it had a resurgence of citations a few years back. Yet no one questioned the methodology.
I hope they are on firmer ground with the Higgs boson
@adamtpack
I’ll be honest about Sex at Dawn – the authors have either an open marriage or are polyamorous, I can’t remember which. I didn’t like it that they had an agenda.
Also, though sexual selection may be wobbly, it’s hard for me to relate to the idea that women prefer promiscuity. I know that one study shows that as people age from their teens through their 20s, their mating strategies usually shift from short- to long-term as a function of maturity. It’s unthinkable, at least to me, that women and men are the same in this way, but I fully admit that might be my own blinders.
Dear Just1X: I understand that the consensus from most in the field is that nature and nurture are both at play but with nature taking the lead. However early age nurture is incredibly important. No cave dwelling, ancient infant has a natural penchant for pink. you will I presume accept. I think this overview is universally accepted by the feminist enclave.
Dear Susan, I applaud your willingness to draw attention to research that may not, at 1st glance, support your blog-mission. Furthermore your critique of the paucity of research supporting the double standard is commendable. Good to see some of us dragged, kicking and screaming, into the new century.
@Jon
That would be a good and painless thing, except for feminists, and we don’t care about them.
@Abbot
Are you dismissing Darwinian theory?
“Also, though sexual selection may be wobbly, it’s hard for me to relate to the idea that women prefer promiscuity. ”
In non-harsh environments, I could see them preferring promiscuity with multiple high status/value partners. If they are all of high mate status, and paternal involvement is not essential, then “may the best sperm win”! But, unlike men, you won’t see much interest by females in promiscuity with multiple low to mid status partners.
“Are you dismissing Darwinian theory”
Theories are fun; feelings are real, whatever the basis…
JQ
Thanks for those links, amazing stuff.
“justifying sexism and patriarchy”
A man must be justifying sexism and patriarchy as the sole basis for declining commitment to a promiscuous woman.
Ah ‘feelings’… its good know everyone here is in touch with their feminine side….
Teb Bundy used to have feelings too…. very real feelings… mores the pity.
Could it be that some feelings one should be ashamed of?
or that should be discouraged?
or that if acted upon, are the basis of a criminal or unethical act?
Food for thought?
@Obs
Au contraire, she is not making any case. She is dismantling the case made by Bateman, by replicating his experiment with better analytical tools than were available 64 years ago.
To be clear, the factors that contradict Bateman’s Principle in the latter part of the post have nothing to do with Gowaty. They are the points of contention long established by other evolutionists. It really is stunning that no one has ever attempted to replicate Bateman’s results.
Well some are, obviously. But I do take your point, and I think here we must acknowledge that women are indeed capable of various and subtle tradeoffs when mating. Even if I found myself sexually attracted to another man when I was having children, I would not have pursued a sexual connection. I had too much to lose. Assuming that around 20% of women cheat in marriage, that’s 80% who could easily do so and choose not to.
And of course pair-bonding, which led to deep feelings of attachment and romantic love, did evolve and is the present model for mating. So it’s rather complicated – many conflicting factors.
Your description of mating in Black America is very complicated – no Darwinian theory can explain it, as it is deeply entrenched with culture, government policy, and the legacy of slavery.
If you haven’t seen it, I think you will enjoy Buss on feminism:
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/busslab/pdffiles/Evolutionary%20Psychology%20and%20Feminism%20-%20Final%20Published%202011.pdf
“the ‘double standard’ was manure years ago”
Ah yes, that made screwing around soooo much easier
Women (human females, at least) are best off keeping their partner count low. A man they don’t know very well (and who has far less emotionally invested in them) is unlikely to voluntarily commit the large amounts of resources monogamy and child rearing require; he’s also an unknown quantity – possibly violent, unstable, impecunious, or flawed.
The comparison with the tragic squalor of the urban inner city “laboratory ” is apt. Dads matter, and they come singly. It doesn’t take a village – it takes a nuclear family.
It’s really not that simple. She has studied sexual selection for 30 years. This is not some hack like Marcotte (or me). She is highly credentialed and at UCLA – and she’s not a Women’s Studies professor.
Moreover, no one is questioning her dismantling of Bateman’s findings. She may have a feminist agenda, and her research has to pass the smell test, which it does in this case.
Paucity of research supporting the double standard (I assume this refers to the idea that studs are awesome, but sluts are bad)? Elaborate.
The way I understand it, the double standard exists not because of some idea that women are naturally monogamous and those who aren’t are deviant, but because women like to have sex with men who get around (and shame those who don’t — a common female insult is some variation of “you’re a loser who can’t get laid”), but men don’t like to commit to women who get around (note that I said “commit” and not “have sex with” — women hold the sex card, but men hold the commitment card.) In essence feminists want men to treat whores like Madonnas.
@ Scientist
The new century, huh? You mean the one with fathers getting kicked out of their homes no matter how well they behave, simply because their wives grew bored with them (and then those same men lose everything they own?) The one where men are exhorted to respect women, but women are told to distrust men? The one where men are lied to about women’s attraction triggers (and vice versa) because organized feminism finds the truth “sexist” or whatever the new word is nowadays?
This does not refute the fact that there are meaningful, non-trivial differences between the sexes that aren’t culturally determined. And if I’m “sexist” for saying this, I don’t care.
P.S.: Flies and birds lay eggs. Humans get pregnant.
“Could it be that some feelings one should be ashamed of?
or that should be discouraged?”
Welcome to the feminist wave du jour: male mind manipulation clearly driven by a shortage of men willing to play along. What wave are they up to now, 5th or 7th? 12th? Ah, who can keep track…
Some people apparently are under the delusion that “female promiscuity” means “having low standards when selecting sexual partners”, that sluts are less discriminating than non-sluts. This is nonsense, as Roissy pointed it out a long time ago.
Susan, I think different kids are socialized from a young age toward different mating strategies. I was thinking about marriage at 15. Probably not the wisest thing for a teenage girl to be trying to pick a lifelong partner, but that was what I was aiming for nonetheless. My husband had two loves, one in high school and one in college, and always pursued relationships, so he was also oriented toward the long-term.
I would attribute this more to our specific background culture and upbringing than what our primate ancestors did over a million years ago. I think we both had the vague sense that we would “disappoint” our families somehow if we ended up with children out of wedlock, contracted STIs, or acted too “declasse.” Our families were secular, so religion was not brought up as an issue. It wasn’t economics for me either, since I was expected to attend college and earn a wage. That leaves me to conclude it must be largely cultural.
I’m with you there. I’m a firm believer in male and female brains being extremely different. Perhaps for Gowaty this is just like winning the lottery, a lucky break. But I’m not going to commit the same error of plugging my ears. I feel that it’s important to be open to surprises, even when they upset my world view.
@Ms. Walsh:
“Your description of mating in Black America is very complicated – no Darwinian theory can explain it, as it is deeply entrenched with culture, government policy, and the legacy of slavery.”
O: There is scant evidence that “the legacy of slavery” has anything to do with what Banks was talking about in his book, as we know that overall, Black America had much higher marital rates just coming out from under Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War, than in the past roughly half a century – and keep in mind that Jim Crow was at its height this time a century ago. Gov’t policy undoubtedly played a role – and a big huge part of said policy, was FEMINISM.
Kay Hymowitz talks about this here; it’s a very, very important read in light of today’s topic:
The Black Family: 40 Years of Lies
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_3_black_family.html
As for the rest of your remarks, points very well taken, I stand corrected. Still, it’s hard not to see where Gowaty et al are driving at – by all accounts she’s saying that what’s going on IS indeed informed by Darwin – and my position is that such a destination is writ large in Black America.
Where’s the bennies in that?
You tell me.
O.
“Ah bless, the anti intellectuals struggling to hold onto their pet theories justifying sexism and patriarchy. ”
Yeah, the Muslims will totally be furious.
“In a time when women’s earning power is climbing steadily, the potential effects of women’s choosing multiple mating partners may already be observed.”
But the women who earn more have less children.
“if monogamy is unnatural from a biological standpoint”
so? Here we are talking of increased earning potentials…
“and all the baggage around female promiscuity really is cultural”
like the male promiscuity baggage, with the recent man-whore talks?
“This view, known as the sexual double standard, suggests that for men, sexual behavior brings praise and respect, whereas for women, identical sexual behavior brings derogation and disrepute. Although the general public’s belief in the sexual double standard is pervasive, (Marks, 2002; Milhausen & Herold, 1999), the research literature paints a different picture. “
“feminists want men to treat whores like Madonnas”
In other words, feminists are fully aware and deeply troubled by the fact that whores vastly outnumber men willing to commit to them. As women catch on the fear is that they will reject feminism. This stuff is so ridiculously transparent. The solution: get men to be ashamed of their own feelings. Yep.
@JQ
Thanks for those links, I look forward to checking them out!
@Scientist:
Pleasure to meet ya! Looking forward to the colloquiy.
By now I am sure you’ve seen my opening remarks on the topic; I am African American, and I approach these issues from that perspective.
Given what I’ve presented, can you please tell me how such a “Gowatian” approach would prove beneficial to African Americans – and if so, in what way? Is there any evidence that you can present that would suggest that all that has taken place along the lines that Gowaty studies has proven to be a good thing for Blacks and/or anyone else?
Thanks in advance!
O.
Obsidian at 6:22…..good post, especially the digging into the background.
Science is a funny thing. There is a lot of junk science funded by people with agendas.
I’ll give you an example unrelated to the SMP which is global warming/climate change and whether it is man-made from emissions or part of long Earth cycles of cooling and warming.
Now I’ll admit I have not gone and studied in depth the source material and studies, but I know of 2 individuals whose intellectual prowess and integrity is in the stratosphere and although the science is not slam dunk (nothing really ever is, the world is much more uncertain then most people can wrap their minds around) the preponderance of the scientific evidence is that much of climate change is indeed due to man-made effects. Now you can find “studies” from impressive sounding organizations that cast tons of doubt and when you trace the funding, you’ll see it goes back to energy companies like Exxon Mobil, etc. The “science” is what has been bought and paid for.
So the minute I hear “feminist” in conjunction with studies of evolutionary biology/psychology my bullshit meter starts running to 11 because in all likelihood that science is being driven by ideological views.
Strategically and tactically though this makes much sense. As a maneuver, it really is brilliant. My sense is the most shrewd feminists realize they lost ground sticking to sociology and ignoring the science and biology…now its time to play catch-up by getting involved in the science and trying to win ground there.
To be clear, I’m not outright dismissing any study, but as a practical matter any time a person reads any scientific study in any area the first question should be does this person potentially have an agenda.
But if you reject that, you reject Darwin. Full stop.
@ Susan
Oh, but has she disproved female hypergamy? I think not.
@ Susan
With that last comment, I don’t mean to sound accusing. Just pointing out that this isn’t the grand refutation of evo-psych that Scientist wishes it is.
@Jon
No marriage won’t die – it’ll just be reinvented under a new name and as couple agreement under the law of contract rather than a state-imposed legal regime based on family law.
It’s already begun with cohabitation agreements or ‘cohabs’. Increasingly cohabs are being drafted not just to answer the question ‘What happens if we break up?’ but also – and this is the innovative part – ‘What happens if we don’t?’
Such couple cohabs reproduce important legal elements of civil marriage such as rights of inheritance and powers of attorney – while at the same time empowering individual couples to design their own mutual commitments that reflect their shared values, life goals and circumstances.
@Scientist
Well I’m unlikely to embrace sex-positive feminism in any case, so….
But I do appreciate the applause. When I see a study like this I groan, as you can imagine. But ignoring this would make me intellectually dishonest. I don’t think unleashed sexuality is good for society, as evidenced at the end of my post. But we can’t understand our environment and how to make it better without understanding the actors and what drives them.
@Ms. Walsh:
“It’s really not that simple. She has studied sexual selection for 30 years. This is not some hack like Marcotte (or me). She is highly credentialed and at UCLA – and she’s not a Women’s Studies professor.
Moreover, no one is questioning her dismantling of Bateman’s findings. She may have a feminist agenda, and her research has to pass the smell test, which it does in this case.”
O: No argument there; but still, at the end of the day, “what does it all mean?” has to be asked.
What is the realworld impact of such a position as Gowaty et al take? And I think it’s fair to say, that if she ain’t in the Sex At Dawn camp, she ain’t that far away.
Well, I am offering as realworld human evidence right in our midst, the Black community…and it don’t look good.
Comments?
O.
“does this person potentially have an agenda”
All feminists are perpetually agenda-driven. Thus the ease and joy of mocking them and the gripe du jour
The Cinderella effect is well-known and researched:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_effect
A woman cannot reliably use the strategy of having kids by multiple different men to secure genetic fitness and garner greater resources, in the absence of outside intervention (such as state-enforced child support).
#4 is therefore problematic, even for the animal kingdom in general.
Also, birth rates out of wedlock are very low in Asia, even in countries that still have a lot of poverty like China (in the case of China it is actually illegal, and a hefty fine is levied):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy_(law)
So there is an evolutionary component but also a cultural component.
I share this view. I am also a pragmatist – if a large percentage of men care about female sexual history, it doesn’t matter at all whether that is biologically hardwired or cultural. It is what it is, and women should consider that when they formulate their own mating strategies. I believe that a majority of males care a whole lot about this – a woman who discards this concern is narrowing her mating pool very significantly.
“I don’t think unleashed sexuality is good for society”
No better than unleashed alcohol or food or whatever consumption because you are not going to get respect for effortlessly grabbing at EASILY obtained CHEAP always available stuff.
@ Obsidian
And that is most important — real-world human evidence.
As Roissy and others have pointed out, women are hypergamous. Not even the sluts sleep with just any non-deformed man — they pick and choose.
Most divorces are by women bored with their supplicating, nice-guy husbands, those same husbands who drank the kool-aid of Just Be Nice And Respectful to Women and Don’t View Them Sexually while the women were told to take men over the coals for any reason or none at all.
The black community, awash in runaway promiscuity, is an obvious train wreck, and this is the model feminists would have us follow.
If I seem irascible, it’s because I must be. I don’t want anyone taking this study and thinking that the feminist shibboleths crammed down our throat every minute of every day by all important institutions are somehow vindicated.
“if a large percentage of men care about female sexual history, it doesn’t matter at all whether that is biologically hardwired or cultural.”
These promiscuous women and their feminist friends keep pushing the “cultural” thing hoping that men are going to read these diatribes and say to themselves “oh, its natural for women to fuck and grow so now it feels right to not even think about it anymore.” By now, some feminists realize this and must be feeling pretty stupid.
“It is what it is, and women should consider that when they formulate their own mating strategies.”
At some point, hopefully very early on, a woman learns its futile to get men to budge on this “issue.”
“I believe that a majority of males care a whole lot about this – a woman who discards this concern is narrowing her mating pool very significantly.”
How much more evidence is needed that this is a fact? At some point, the denial is just going to stop.
@CED #54:
Yup, I feel ya, Man. This is why I mentioned Banks and Hymowitz – because I want to force these “applied sciences” questions into the discussion. I get that it may not be Science’s job to contemplate how its discoveries are used and the social/political/economic/etc implications are, but this concerns realworld stuff here.
O.
But if you reject that, you reject Darwin. Full stop.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. The problem is that the so-called Dangerous Idea* has so many holes in it at this point that it’s almost pointless to even bother referring to it. It’s really nothing but crude economics applied to biology, with all the problems that entails. If the failure to confirm Bateman horrifies you, you’ll likely be struck mute if you ever look into how few actual experiments on natural selection have been done… and how many of the statistical studies on it are invalid because biologists don’t understand statistics.
*I prefer to refer to it as TE(p)NSBMGDaGF or the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow.
Oh, and while I’m on this roll, I’ll note why human females are so blasted choosy:
They have to carry each baby for nine months, and after having so many, their bodies will give out.
Males, on the other hand, benefit far more from promiscuity, since they just need to dump the seed and go.
Thus, far and away, a promiscuous male will have more offspring than a promiscuous female, assuming all babies are carried to term.
Remember, humans aren’t flies.
“The black community, awash in runaway promiscuity, is an obvious train wreck, and this is the model feminists would have us follow.”
In combination with the gay men approach to sex that works for them just fine, but not necessarily for women.
Feminists care more about women being able to do whatever they want to do without anyone for any reason calling them out on it. A man who screws a slut and declines commitment to her because she is a slut is in essence calling her out on her behavior even if does not utter a word.
Now I’ll admit I have not gone and studied in depth the source material and studies, but I know of 2 individuals whose intellectual prowess and integrity is in the stratosphere and although the science is not slam dunk (nothing really ever is, the world is much more uncertain then most people can wrap their minds around) the preponderance of the scientific evidence is that much of climate change is indeed due to man-made effects. Now you can find “studies” from impressive sounding organizations that cast tons of doubt and when you trace the funding, you’ll see it goes back to energy companies like Exxon Mobil, etc. The “science” is what has been bought and paid for.
There is a LOT more money available on the AGW/CC side, Mike C. Your metric indicates the opposite of what you suggest. Do you also assume all vaccines are ineffective because all the vaccine-related “science” is bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical companies that sell them? I’m not saying there is no money-corrupted science out there, but from the strictly logical point of view, you’re appealing to the genetic fallacy.
“But I do appreciate the applause. When I see a study like this I groan, as you can imagine. But ignoring this would make me intellectually dishonest. I don’t think unleashed sexuality is good for society, as evidenced at the end of my post. But we can’t understand our environment and how to make it better without understanding the actors and what drives them.”
Oh, I quite agree. Civility and an ethical perspective is all important.
We cannot just let our feelings and whims dictate everything- even if they are (or are not) bourne of ancient environmental driving forces.
At the same time, one cannot completely run counter to ones nature and its worth sometimes distilling whats nature and whats nurture as best one can.
We have seen gay men and women being forced in straight marriage, women forced into child marriage, premature marriage, arranged marriage etc.
This tends to lead to unhappy unfulfilled humans. So if, bit by bit, research appears over time to lead to a more informed and sensible debate on such issues then I for one, welcome this.
“one cannot completely run counter to ones nature”
Then, um, men who decline commitment to promiscuous women will no longer be shamed for stubbornly sticking to their nature?
“We cannot just let our feelings and whims dictate everything”
Likewise, whatever feelings and whims are selected by an individual to dictate their actions or inactions is acceptable and respected…but alas, here we are
I’d go so far as to say that sexual selection is definitely not refuted in humans, since female pregnancy requires much greater bodily investment than male ejaculation.
That’s relatively easy to suss out. Funding is always transparent, and junk studies don’t get published in prestigious academic journals.
I would like to reiterate that Gowaty did not conceive a study and get it funded to prove a point. The National Science Foundation funded a repeat of a study on which sexual selection theory literally rests, based on DNA technology available now. They did not ask the female fruit flies whether they liked dominant guy flies, or whether curly wings turned them on more than flat wings. They tracked the mating activity of fruit flies, and the apex fallacy was not present in fruit fly mating. The female fruit flies did not gravitate to alpha fruits.
Yes, it sounds rather funny to discuss human mating in these terms, but that is what evolution theory is. It’s extrapolating from flower pollination and fish laying eggs in water and lions who kill their young and seahorse SAHDs. If you don’t buy it, that’s fine, but to say that a UCLA professor can’t be credible because she is feminist is denial.
Driving home the point, female flies can lay 75 to 150 eggs at a time. I’d say promiscuity has definite advantages for female flies. From what I can gather, flies don’t practice high-investment parenting; they just lay their eggs right on top of a food source (for example, a dead body.)
However, human females cannot put out anywhere near that number of children, and the number of children a given female can care for adequately is in the single digits — and that’s with a beta provider husband.
Therefore, the study only indicates that our knowledge of fly mating habits was incorrect.
@ Susan
It’s as I thought. When you can lay 75 to 150 eggs at a time, and food sources are a dime a dozen, you don’t need to be choosy about mates.
This ties in rather well with r/K selection theory. Flies are clearly an r-selected species, since they have nearly unlimited resources available to them (they’re tiny and there’s always lots of dead meat to eat), therefore reducing the need to select for fitness (which is why they wouldn’t select for “dominant guy flies.”) Hence, they bear large numbers of children and do not invest much in their upbringing.
Large mammals (elephants, wolves, lions, humans) are K-selected. Their population levels exist at the carrying capacity for their environment, or very near it. Thus, they have to select mates carefully, bear small numbers of children, and invest in their upbringing so that they can compete for scarce resources.
Thus, the scientist, if trying to apply this to humans, would be comparing apples and oranges.
To see more details, visit this nifty page (the writer has a pet theory about how American politics ultimately comes from the r/K paradigm, but you can ignore that if you wish.)
What happens from here is such an interesting question. There’s a LOT more going on besides SMP and MMP.
The SMP/MMP, for instanced, divides us into Upper Middle Class and everyone else.
But then there are a lot of government programs that turn a chunk of Everyone Else into Government Dependents. I have family like this right now: they need to make LESS money to qualify for an important government program. If they ever make more than that amount, they lose gov’t support. Permanent Govt Dependents.
Then the economy divides the Upper Middle Class into Upper Middle Class and Super-Rich Fucks.
Then the Upper Middle Class creates a bunch of nonsense job “requirements” that make no sense to protect themselves from competition in the labor market, which makes them richer but shuts Everyone Else out from the good jobs. It also means the UMC sits on their laurels in a bunch of stupid-ass desk jobs that don’t contribute anything to the country and school, rather than being education in any meaningful sense, is just a checklist to get you to a “good job.”
The Super-Rich focus on their ridiculous consumption and besides a few venture capitalists don’t invest jack shit in the country. Unlike the 19th century industrialists that build up their companies, modern Super-Rich are just in a scramble to pick up safe investments to protect their fortunes. Hence, all that “AAA” housing debt.
So you get Government Dependents, which is just going to keep on growing. You get the Majority, which can’t get any good jobs or good marriages and produce kids that aren’t quite as good as they could be, and couldn’t get jobs, either. You get the UMC, which think their shit doesn’t stink but doesn’t really accomplish anything. And then you get the Super-Rich that increasingly don’t give a shit about the rest of us besides ego-serving reasons.
This continues until the US credit line becomes exhausted and the party bunch can’t go on. Then the Majority starts radicalizing and Bad Stuff happens.
“and junk studies don’t get published in prestigious academic journals”
That’s naive.
“The National Science Foundation ”
Title IX is not just for athletics.
“lions who kill their young”
If you mean male lions, then lions kill other lions young. Even female ones(other pride for both). Lionesses also kill their cubs if they are low on food.
“a UCLA professor can’t be credible because she is feminist is denial”
“Our worldviews constrain our imaginations,” Gowaty said. “For some people, Bateman’s result was so comforting that it wasn’t worth challenging. I think people just accepted it.”
Yeah, she might be credible, but the irony is strong. I don’t think anyone went “Fruit flies show that patriarchy works!”
Well, as I said earlier, bio drives are tempered by society, cultural norms, upbringing, and various other things. Clearly, the Pill did change female behavior, regardless of our wiring. Monogamy is the system that has created the most economic productivity throughout time, and will therefore always resurface as necessary for the common good.
The truth is, the divide is by education, not race. The women you describe are sentencing themselves and most likely their children to falling further behind as the wealth gap increases.
@CrisisEra
There is absolutely nothing political in either the original study or the replicated study. A conclusion previously treated as gospel has been disproved. That is fact and that is news. There is no “spinning” required. I’m accepting the facts at face value. To do otherwise is willful ignorance.
“I don’t think anyone went “Fruit flies show that patriarchy works!”
Of course no one did. But this author wants you to believe that the so-called “patriarchy” jumped on a fly experiment. So she could be provocative and debunk it with her own flies. Battle of the Flys.
Relevant to the discussion an article studying prairie voles, one of the few mammals that like us pair bond… or at least tries: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201106/pair-bonding-101-beware-novelty-aphrodisiac
@ Susan
You’re right, it has been disproved…in an r-selected insect that lays 75 to 150 eggs at a time and practices low-investment parenting.
Humans, on the other hand, are K-selected placental mammals whose females can only bear a dozen or so kids at most per individual and has to care for them all too — they can’t just be left on top of a food source to fend for themselves. On top of that, they can only have one kid per sex act, two if they’re lucky. Thus, the human female historically had to make it count by selecting the most alpha genes.
This is consistent with the observed mating patterns of humans, especially human females.
Hence, why this study is not quite as important as Gowaty makes it out to be, with regard to human sexuality.
@Scientist
“However early age nurture is incredibly important”
Yes, fine. I agree that both play a part in development, it would be hard to think otherwise. My point is that there ARE feminist scientists who absolutely deny ‘nature’. They insist that there are no inate differences between the sexes’ brains. That’s why they don’t qualify for my definition of scientists; their dogma forbids nature, so they ignore that evidence.
A Norwegian guy made a documentary about sexism in Norway. A lot of ‘professional’ ‘scientists’ just flat out rejected any evidence about brain structure and composition. Evil society was to blame for men doing the majority of ‘men’ jobs (engineering, dirty, dangerous etc) and women doing the office jobs, nurses etc. If they could just force men and women to be the same by throwing enough laws (at men) and money (at women) we could be living in teh promised land.
http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2012/01/brainwashing-norway/
http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=42041
hxxp://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=327138
Being promiscuous does not mean being less choosy about sperm donor quality. As long as the promiscuity is with high SMV males, and that can be discerned quite fast (tingles), the genetic quality is ensured. Promiscuity means either not caring about getting or needing a present father or gambling on him committing later and it means being less choosy about his dad qualities because those take longer to ascertain. So from a strict breading perspective, females only have an incentive to not be random about who they copulate with not to avoid copulating with many. It is only the need for later support that matters in terms of being choosy about who they sleep with. Then they need to check out his suitability in a much wider sense, they need to have as much certainty that he will commit as possible and they need to give him paternity security to make him commit. So take away the need for long term support and the female of a species should have an incentive to be highly promiscuous in a very hypergamous sense.
At the extreme hights of promiscuity there is the added benefit of sperm competition. If a woman has sex with several men within a very short times span or she has a gangbang, their sperm will battle it out and the winner presumably is the best stock. More sperm to compete presumably means the one that wins is of utmost quality. Because every man has multiple sperm of various qualities, even a lower ranking male can have a few sperm that would produce a much higher value son or daughter, he just does not have so much of it. So if you mix in the sperm of several males the chances are the one she thought was the top male isn`t going to be the one who impregnates her because amongst the much larger amount of sperm from the other lower ranking guys there should be at least some sperm that is of even higher quality just because there is so much of it. So, from a breading perspective gangbangs might be the ultimate strategy.
“Yes, it sounds rather funny to discuss human mating in these terms, but that is what evolution theory is. It’s extrapolating from flower pollination and fish laying eggs in water and lions who kill their young and seahorse SAHDs. If you don’t buy it, that’s fine, but to say that a UCLA professor can’t be credible because she is feminist is denial.”
Yes, ‘extrapolating’, that would be my issue with the original research or the do over. I’m happy to hear that research has been repeated with better technology…but WTF has it got to do with humans? Why the hell were they using fruitflies to model human behaviour? It’s like looking at two points on a map of London and extrapolating to Buttfuck Alabama.
I haven’t done in depth research, but from a techie point of view I could run remarkably different code on the human brain than on a fruit fly brain. I remember seeing some research on how turkeys (so already a much bigger brain than a fruitfly) recognise a mating opportunity;
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2007/11/on-the-sexual-predilections-of-turkeys/
So, given turkey hardware (a turkey brain) the fittest for survival code means that a male turkey figures he’s gonna get lucky, just because he sees a female turkey head (on a stick). I like healthy sized baps and a cute arse as much as the next guy, but forgive me for saying that I’m a little bit more discriminating when it comes to mating for reproduction.
Fruitfly 100,000 neurons ooto 10^7 synapses
Human 85,000,000,000 For average adult; 10^14-10&15 synapses
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_neurons)
So you’re going model a human at any meaningful level using a fruitfly? You don’t think that nature used some of the extra 84999900000 neurons to fine tune mating behaviour? FFS this isn’t science.
@ Wudang
You know, I thought about it for a moment and I came to that same conclusion. Any promiscuity will not be with nice-guy beta males. If she has a child by an alpha, then meets a different man who is more alpha, she will have sex with him too.
So don’t break out the bubbly, betas. Sex rank still matters.
@Obs
“I am a bit dubious of their ability to put reason, logic and evidence ahead of their ideology.”
no shit. I have been lectured at by a muslim telling me about muslim research on the health evils of alcohol and pork, he was smoking at the time. ‘medical research’ in the UK says that alcohol use should be limited to 1/2 a unit per day (announced by an anti alcohol ‘charity’). I’m sure that there are religious ‘scientists’ supporting the 7 day creation tale.
There should be no agenda in science beyond finding the objective truth. Feminism has a track record of dogma over reality. If you can’t seperate feewings from facts, stick to the liberal arts.
@Susan
“‘Animal behaviors are based on intricate conditions peculiar to a their particular make up and evolutionary niche, otherwise observing spiders one could extrapolate that all females want to consume their mates after coitus.’
But if you reject that, you reject Darwin. Full stop.”
WHOA
“peculiar to a their particular make up and evolutionary niche”
This allows fruitflies to have the best reproductive strategy for fruitflies.
Spider breed X for spider breed X
Humans for humans (but with processing on multiple hardware levels; reptilian, mammalian and human – allowing massive complexity of end behaviours)
Darwin allows any level of specialisation. He doesn’t claim that fruitfly behaviour says anything whatsoever about humans, does he?
This is about Bateman and Gowaty, a couple of ologists. Not Darwin who was a scientist opening up a new field of theories.
”In two or three generations, I doubt any men will get married unless it’s forced by the State – the system will break up and perhaps reform with more equitable laws and rights for men. Marriage with rights and responsibilities and with fault divorces informing splits, becomes the new norm”
You probably won’t even see men socializing with women. It’s becoming increasingly dangerous for the beta male to be near women in public. For myself, every time my father brings me along to hang out with his buddies and their attractive daughters(yeah, these dudes are trying to get their daughters married, hehe), I quickly excuse myself with the ”bathroom, be right back” and I head to my buddies houses until my dad calls in for the night’s end.
@ Just1X
You said it. Humans are quite a different creature from flies. Taking a study on the mating habits of insects and extrapolating to large placental mammals is just silly on its face. The cost of mating is way higher in human females than in fly females.
@CED
“Sex rank still matters”
was this ever in doubt? LMAO
I’d just rather the alphas and sluts paid for their own bubbly, and the rest of us didn’t have to live in a legalised thug society with its hands in my pocket all the time.
I’m all in favour of individual freedoms, let’s just not socialise the costs mmm’kay?
@CED
yeah, I just get the feeling that they’ve let the kids play dress up as scientists, time for the grown ups to take over. the costs on society are too high for their antics.
(BTW the mmm’kay should have had a smiley on it – it wasn’t a dig)
@VD
Funny you say that – I originally named this post The Incredible Shrinking Darwin, but I figured I might draw all kinds of nutty folks here.
It is difficult to imagine how it could be correct to extrapolate from the mating habits of insects or flowers, yet this theory has been vetted by many great minds, though not without holes, as you point out.
My guess is that our understanding of evolution is in its infancy – in 500 years people will read the history of some of the crazy things humans believe today.
I felt that way reading about this research. How is it possible that the underpinning of sexual selection is one creaky old fruit fly experiment? It cannot be that difficult to track who mates with whom among various species. Admittedly, it’s difficult with humans, but surely we might observe the mating habits of other mammals at least. Yet we remain largely ignorant – a year or so ago I read an article about the research into baboon mating habits. It turns out that the beta baboons, rather than fighting with scrappy, aggressive alpha for the right to mate, were getting laid like tile behind his back by seducing females without his permission.
Alpha Romeos
@Scientist
I’m currently reading The Paradox of Love by Pascal Bruckner. In it he dissects the Sexual Revolution and how the concepts of freedom and the pursuit of happiness ironically caused us to dismiss the value of love in service to the gratification of orgasm. He argues that happiness is not really a worthy or even realistic human goal, and I find that very intriguing. We don’t really know what makes us happy, or how long any particular thing will make us feel happy. Stevenson and Wolfers’ work, which studiously avoided pointing the finger at feminism, drives that point home very well.
@Crisis Era Dynamo
FWIW, I agree with you. And there’s a great deal of research that clearly demonstrates the relative differences between human males and females. We have the technology to study the physical and chemical differences between male and female brains and they are profound.
Biology Drives Gender
Sexual selection has not been refuted in humans. It’s simply a case of the experiment that confirmed it in the minds of so many has now been shown to be flawed. That does not mean the hypothesis of sexual selection has been disproved. But it does suggest that evolutionary biologists should start ramping up their research efforts – what do these people do all day?
@ADBG
That’s a grim scenario but you’re certainly not alone. I agree that it’s a class issue, which is a wealth gap issue, which is at least partly a result of women flooding the workforce and creating two-income households. I’m not rendering a value judgment on that, but I heard one economist say on NPR (he was the enemy guest, haha) that if women stayed home with kids the wealth gap would disappear, or nearly so.
I felt that way reading about this research. How is it possible that the underpinning of sexual selection is one creaky old fruit fly experiment?
My hypothesis is that scientists are relatively lazy, stupid, and narrowly educated. I can’t tell you how many biologists I have puzzled by asking very simple questions like: what is the average rate of evolution from species to species? Now, I understand their definitions of species are varied and nebulous and it is a fairly complex matter; it’s a difficult question to answer. But what I found remarkable is that for the most part they didn’t even understand the question. They literally didn’t understand that IF multiple transformations from X to Y are happening, THEN there absolutely must be time periods over which those transformations happen as well as a calculable average of those periods.
It’s fine to say “we don’t know the answer”. But if your response is “that’s not relevant” or “an average rate doesn’t exist”, then you’re an idiot. One thing I’ve learned in looking at course curricula is that biologists receive very little training in math, statistics, history, and logic, which is one reason they are rightly derided as “butterfly collectors” by the hard scientists. Also, the long time frames with which they have to play allows hiding an incredible amount of nonsense. Look at how much the economists get away with and they’re often being disproved in real time.
@ Susan
Interesting you bring up the baboon thing — I read Anonymous Conservative’s book, “The Evolutionary Psychology Behind Politics,” and he has a section where, in the context of r/K selection theory, (a tad antiquated, see Note below) he discusses the Australian Giant Cuttlefish matting patterns.
Male cuttlefish normally fight in front of a female, and the winner mates with the female. However, smaller males with poor fighting skills disguise themselves as females, sneak past the fighting males, and mate with the females that the males were fighting over.
The fighters were using a Competitive strategy that selected for fitness. The transvestites were using an Anticompetitive strategy, focused solely on reproduction for its own sake.
Therefore, your baboon example is a textbook case of an Anticompetitive strategy.
Note: Quoting from AC’s book (p. 15),
“It must be noted that r/K selection theory has of late been supplanted by more case-specific theories within the study of reproductive strategies and life history traits…[r]egardless, r/K selection theory is still a useful, well established heuristic, commonly used within the study of life history traits, reproductive strategies, and even in the field of human behavioral ecology.”
@ Susan
The wealth gap would disappear because women in the workforce alongside men drive down wages for everyone. When women were simply replacing retiring men, they benefited from the high wages of the past; now, employers’ labor pool has effectively doubled, and wages fell to reflect that reality.
Since feminists have hissy fit tantrums regarding the “nature” basis, do they also claim that gay people are a product of “culture” and therefore curable?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/27815739.html
Inconsistency is but one humorous hallmark of feminism
@VD
“Also, the long time frames with which they have to play allows hiding an incredible amount of nonsense.”
Yes, another problem is that when the BS mounts up, they can reference each other’s work. This adds pseudo-credibility to their own research. Basically it’s building a new tower on a castle built of sand.
Referencing works in two ways:
1) adding credibility – look I’m just extending what this says
2) making the referring work vulnerable to all the weaknesses of the referred work.
If you have a bedrock of sand in a subject (sorry about that mixed metaphor), you compromise the entire field forever.
Yes M. Mead I AM thinking of you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead
“Derek Freeman, an anthropologist who spent many years among the Samoans, was critical of Mead’s findings that culture is responsible for the disturbances of adolescence, and that Samoans had a significantly different experience. He wrote:
“It is with the scientific adequacy of Mead’s picture of Samoan society that I shall be concerned with from now on, for to the extent that this picture is defective, Samoa ceases to be a negative instance and Mead’s central conclusion that culture, or nurture, is all-important in the determination of adolescent and other aspects of human behavior is revealed as ungrounded and invalid.”
Martin Orans, another anthropologist who worked in Samoa, wrote:
“Occasionally a message carried by the media finds an audience so eager to receive it that it is willing to suspend all critical judgment and adopt the message as its own. So it was with Margaret Mead’s celebrated ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’.”"
True, and the MSM contaminates every bit of news. For example, here are the headlines newspapers used to share this research:
Study Finds Men Are Not Hard-Wired to be Unfaithful
Study On Why Men Cheat Is Totally Flawed
Men are NOT unfaithful by nature!
I think it was here that I read about study about monogamous males vs non-monogamous males and their reaction to porn pictures and emo-porn (i.e. pictures showing emotional bonds between males and females)? It seem to me that there is a fraction of totally monogamous males and females, fraction of totally non-monogamous males and females, and a lot of in-betweeners. Take me for example: i don’t care whether it’s case of biology of upbringing, but each my sex fantasy involves getting into long-term fantasy. Highly atypical for a males, I know, but I am living proof that such males exists and as such, there will be males (and hopefully, females too) who will seek monogamy. Therefore, monogamic families will continue to exists, even if they may become rare.
“when the BS mounts up, they can reference each other’s work.”
Read just about any feminist “study” especially those coming from “gender studies” or “womens studies” departments and you will see references to other similar “studies” that are part of a mountainous crescendo of pure shit. This is all quite amusing but ceases to be funny when some lazy politician uses one of these fictitious tales to justify new policy or a policy change which of course is the ultimate goal of these academic tricksters.
@CED
That’s interesting – I was not aware of the cuttlefish example. It’s not surprising that the “weaker” males would have evolved alternative strategies rather than just sit around and let the big guys have all the females.
This is pure speculation, but I once saw someone remark that when ancestor males hunted, some would have had to stay behind to protect the women and children. Those would not have been the best hunters, but they probably mated with the women during those periods. The cost would have been low, as the alphas were not there to witness it and paternity could not be assured.
Good point.
Studies like these, to me, aren’t as relevant as observing a common behavior and finding the cause for it, implications of it. Puzzle pieces:
- Women are more attracted to different men at different points in their cycle.
- Women with partners have a stronger sexual response to sexually attractive behaviors.
- Romantic love only lasts 6 to 18 months with one person, but is freely available with another.
- The cliche of a long-married couple is a bickering, sexless pairing.
- Nearly every civilization, independently evolved marriage traditions.
- …With low-N brides, divorce restrictions, and adultery penalties up to death by stoning.
One of my favorite new movies is Blue Valentine, which didn’t quite have a plot, more flashing between the sun-kissed beginning of a relationship, and the grey-smeared end of one. Back and forth, sunny to grey, until you get it, Nature’s trick. We’re wired to form Beneficial bonds with wonderful people, painful to break, which, after a time, all force of hormone and perception tempts you to painfully break, or else be miserable.
(BTW, this comes to us all, alpha to Omega.) If alpha’s have an advantage, it’s that testosterone blocks oxytocin; alphas don’t bond as strongly at the beginning.)
That’s the challenge laid out. Fathers make civilization (or, less assertively, fathers create statistically improved outcomes for their children and the populations that interact with those children) but nature’s design is to remove fathers. I personally think that I can outsmart the biology of it, and it’s worth giving it a go.
*Per the banner pic, the shiny peacock and its tingle-tail, attractions aren’t necessarily eugenic. Some shiny fella exploited the loophole and got through the gate, now an entire species has to drag around its own cabaret show.
An interesting study, but doesn’t necessarily apply to humans, or even mammals in general.
See;
http://www.putslab.psu.edu/pdfs/puts_10_beautybeast.pdf
Beauty and the beast: mechanisms of sexual selection in humans
“Abstract:
Literature in evolutionary psychology suggests that mate choice has been the primary mechanism of sexual selection in humans, but this conclusion conforms neither to theoretical predictions nor available evidence. Contests override other mechanisms of sexual selection; that is, when individuals can exclude their competitors by force or threat of force, mate choice, sperm competition, and other mechanisms are impossible. Mates are easier to monopolize in two dimensional mating environments, such as land, than in three-dimensional environments, such as air, water, and trees. Thus, two-dimensional mating environments may tend to favor the evolution of contests. The two-dimensionality of the human mating environment, along with phylogeny, the spatial and temporal clustering of mates and competitors, and anatomical considerations, predict that contest competition should have been the primary mechanism of sexual selection in men. A functional analysis supports this prediction. Men’s traits are better designed for contest competition than for other sexual selection mechanisms; size, muscularity, strength, aggression, and the manufacture and use of weapons probably helped ancestral males win contests directly, and deep voices and facial hair signal dominance more effectively than they increase attractiveness. However, male monopolization of females was imperfect, and female mate choice, sperm competition, and sexual coercion also likely shaped men’s traits. In contrast, male mate choice was probably central in women’s mating competition because ancestral females could not constrain the choices of larger and more aggressive males through force, and attractive women could obtain greater male investment. Neotenous female features and body fat deposition on the breasts and hips appear to have been shaped by male mate choice.”
@chris
Article is wrong, because it misses the obvious: even in ancestral environment, females could still try to incite interests of different males (and then keep thumbs so he could win the competition).
@ms walsh:
The “satellite” or “sneaky f*cker” strategy is well known and documented in evopsych circles, as well discussed oin considerable detail in buss’ book the evolution of desire, using bull frogs and a woody allen movie as illustrative examples.
O.
Susan – “He argues that happiness is not really a worthy or even realistic human goal, and I find that very intriguing.”
I may have to read this book. I’ve been saying this exact thing here and elsewhere for two years now: perhaps happiness IS NOT what people should strive for. They should strive for other things, and those things can/will make them happy. But trying to “create” happiness is folly at best.
The use of fruit flies as a model organism to study sexual selection and extrapolate its conclusions to humans is disturbing. Surely better model organism are present, more similar to humans.
Fruit flies helps to understand biological processes, like transcription, inheritance. Last time I checked, psychology is not a among them. This study point out a flaw, but at the same time it attempts to rake in more than what it is good for.
@szopen
I don’t think you are rare. I think that many men would ideally like to find a compatible and loving partner. LT mating has many benefits that ST mating does not, and also lower costs in some ways. For each individual, the preference for ST opportunities will vary, so the tradeoff will as well.
So what is the human equivalent?
Lots of oldtime great minds are now being questioned, including, Freud, Spock, and even Einstein.
Einstein was once asked, “if the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into, nothingness?”……He was reported to have just a blank stare on his face and didnt even attempt to answer the question.
For those of us who lived thru the “sexual revolution” it was life changing and certianly society changing. The pill unleashed what people thought to be impossible, if not improbable, wider spread female promiscuity. It proves that not only shaming kept women in check, but the fear of unwanted pregnancy was a big obsticle. Younger people see the SMP as it is today, but not how it got to where it is today. The progression in the west to a much more sexual society from what it had been.
I remember on TV when married couples bedrooms had to show TWO beds, (Dick Van Dyke).Now they show nearly naked people having sex (Two and a Half Men) That show has constant references to oral sex, anal sex and threesomes. 30/40 years ago that was totally unheard of.
More and more people are becoming less insulted (for lack of a better word) and more used to sex as an open and honest part of the American culture. I am not saying it is right, it is what it is.
I remember beaches would close and or be picketed instead of allowing bikinis, but by todays standards, that would be ridiculous. The floss women wear today is nearly like being naked.
Attitudes have and are changing, no matter what hussys like abbott say.
That being said, what Susan preaches to young women is very worthwhile because the prevailing attitude is still toward the double standard, for now.
It would be interesting to be around in another 50 years to see how much society will change. The last 50 years or so, it has changed drastically. My grandparants wouldnt be impressed, or would they?
PS: I would like to point out the article is open access. So those in favor of knowing the details, click on SW’s link to ScienceDaily, scroll down and click for the reference to PNAS, then download the article. I will read it.
“Mates are easier to monopolize in two dimensional mating environments, such as land, than in three-dimensional environments, such as air, water, and trees. Thus, two-dimensional mating environments may tend to favor the evolution of contests. ”
Fascinating idea, but I’m not sure 2-D versus 3-D is really the key–terrain, concealment possibilities, and food availability seem critical. In the desert, if she runs away then the mate-monopolizer can probably catch her, if she doesn’t starve to death first. In a dense forest, it’s going to be much harder to catch her, and there are probably good things to eat ready at hand.
@Ian
I feel the need to correct some misstatements:
Not different men. Different qualities in men. A woman may like it if her husband is especially dominant when she is ovulating. She may have a higher sex drive. Research shows that paired women do not seek different men during ovulation, though single women may.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
The limerence phase of being in love generally lasts 1-3 years, according to Helen Fisher. After that some of the lust subsides, but attachment grows.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993160-1,00.html
Yes, that’s the comedic cliche. It’s also a plot that may be found in fiction, e.g. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I think it’s a bit outdated, as the love match has become the primary motivation and mechanism for marriage.
Blue Valentine – let’s hope that is not typical. What a movie! I had a movie hangover for days after seeing it. When young women describe aimless, unmotivated young men to me – the guitarist who sleeps all day, the guy happily living with mom and dad in his mid-20s – I respond, “blue valentine.”
Actually, it can be difficult at times.
I believe that much of the research on both sides of the “Cell Phones Give You Cancer” debate has been funded by vested interests. But, as one reporter once put it: one of those vested interested is likely to be right.
“Attitudes have and are changing…”
um, regarding nudity and foul language? Is there supposed to be some sort of leap to something else?
“the prevailing attitude is still toward the double standard”
Really? Because this so-called “double standard” is undefined. If it cannot be defined or described then it does not exist and is a myth especially in light of how men “embrace” sluts given their willingness to get single men off sexually.
Stop pushing myths and let everyone fuck in peace. Thanks
They should strive for other things, and those things can/will make them happy. But trying to “create” happiness is folly at best.
________
Just like attitude, happiness is a choice. It doesnt matter much what happens to you, but what matters is how you react.
Your thought process determinds the chemical release in your brain in most cases.
Control your thoughts and you also control your emotions.
That is why counseling is a multibillion business, most people let their thoughts control them. Counseling is just teaching people how to control what they think.
Yeah Abbott, attitudes toward nudity AND sex are changing, no matter what your caveman attitude tells you.
Here Abbott, let me give you the laymans definition of the double standard.
Girls who fuck around are sluts, and guys get a pass for the same behavior. see that wasnt so tough was it?
abbott the only myth the prevails around here is your preaching that nearly ALL men believe as you do, which is total bullshit. maybe here at HUS they do, but not in the real world. Oh yes, your attitude is still in the majority, but that majority has shrinked considerably in the last 40 years.
Hey, its fine for you to want a stepford wife, more power to ya.
Tom – “Control your thoughts and you also control your emotions.”
If I had a motto, this might just be it. I try my best to live my life exactly this way.
I had to laugh about the reference to global warming. Its not like the man who is pushing that agenda, Al Gore isnt heavily invested into several “green” companies and could profit billions if his agenda succeeds.
By the way, most of the worlds scientists disagree, over the last 10 years the earth has actually cooled. I remember only 30 years ago they said we were about to enter a new ice age…….follow the money.
“Control your thoughts and you also control your emotions.”
Ah, why strain yourself to accommodate the life-changing needs of forlorn incompatibles – just change the company you keep when the time is right.
Funny, this “advice” is creepily familiar to this stated above by “scientist” -
“Could it be that some feelings one should be ashamed of?
or that should be discouraged?”
This new trend to get men to change is actually quite amusing. How is that working out?
Susan, have you read Sex at Dawn? Authors Ryan and Jetha point out a number of studies biological and anthropological that seem to indicate that humans are optimized for a multi-male, multi-female mating system, with various cultural strategies that create family bonds. (from matrilineal to multiple types of fathers to what amounts to swing clubs). They make the case that strict, lifelong monogamous marriage (and lethal violence) only arose to control hoarded resources, of which a strict hunter-gatherer society collected none. An interesting point of view. If STDs weren’t a huge concern and our culture supported clans rather than nuclear families, I would personally find the multi-male, multi-female mating system
VERY appealing.
Tom – “Girls who fuck around are sluts, and guys get a pass for the same behavior. see that wasnt so tough was it?”
I have to ask though. Exactly WHERE is this double standard originating? I was raised a Catholic, and if I remember correctly both woman AND men were considered sinners for “fucking around”. Now, perhaps at some point society in general started turning a “blind eye” to promiscuous men. But as far as I see, no one that actually believes in the morals behind being chaste accept that “boys will be boys” and women should be virgins on their wedding night. My family certainly never promoted any such nonsense, and most of the people I know weren’t raised to believe men should screw around and woman should behave.
But I’ll say this: in so much as a double standard exists in modern society, I believe it is total bullshit. To me both men AND women should keep their pants on far more often than they do now.
Abbott – “Ah, why strain yourself to accommodate the life-changing needs of forlorn incompatibles – just change the company you keep when the time is right.”
I don’t promote controlling ones thoughts and emotions for shaming purposes my friend. I believe that everyone should have a tight reign on their emotions through logical thought, mostly because a society swimming in emotion is probably going to be chaotic and generally unsafe. If we all just stopped “feeling” so damn much and started “thinking” a whole lot more, we would be in a much better place IMHO. Of course, I say that being an INTJ, which means I probably think FAR more than the average bear.
Ted good for you.
Controlling thoughts is waht separates the good from the great. Sports are a good example.
Some guys can routinely make that 5 foot put, while others do not. Some guys dont choke when the game is on the line, they make the free throw.
The toughest thing to control is that six inches ( no not THAT six inches) between the ears.
@JQ
That article on the decline effect was fascinating, and I was more than a little horrified to see that one of the examples was the claim about symmetry in mating! That is a key pillar of evo bio and evo psych, and the decline in symmetry 1.5 million years ago is what supports the theory about the evolution of pair bonding.
This makes my head spin.
Surely better model organism are present, more similar to humans.
I just read an article yesterday contrasting the radically different sexual mating behavior and environment of chimpanzees versus bonobos which arguably are about as genetically close as you are going to get to both each other and us humans.
I think the science is important to nail down if for no other reason then there is value in understanding the truth of something. That said, it is an error of colossal proportions to take what might have evolved and use that as some sort of normative standard of “what ought to be” in a highly complex techno-industrial modern society. Regardless of how humans actually evolved, what we can do definitively is look across time and geography and see what type of societies various mating/family structures produced or at least coincided with. As Obsidian has pointed out, we can easily witness the sort of communities “the multiple baby daddy model” has produced in the black community in urban America.
Advancing the body of scientific knowledge is very good, especially for understanding intrinsic tendencies, but I don’t think that is the basis of trying to shape societal/cultural norms.
In general, it is much better to think in terms of “Satisfaction” instead of “Happiness”.
All you need to do is see some guy pass up the opportunity for free tickets to a comedy club so that he can keep hacking away at his motorcycles’ transmission.
Finally, after 8 straight fucking hours of working on this “piece of shit”, he figures out what was causing the problem and he hears it purr like a kitten.
Satisfaction.
Hey Ted, I like your new picture. Congrats on the weight loss and other internal improvements you feel you’ve made. And since I gather you don’t like compliments feel free to snarl at me!
Hey Ted, I like your new photo. Congrats on the weight loss and other internal improvements you feel you’ve made. And since I gather you don’t like compliments feel free to snarl at me!
“controlling ones thoughts and emotions for shaming purposes ”
It has been suggested that men who QUIETLY dismiss promiscuous women for marriage are shaming them. Then there is no escape from shaming since lack of action or speech is shaming. The only way to escape this contrived shame trap then is to leave the country or not give a rats ass about what others think of you.
Ted I agree with you…feelings lie, at least a lot more than logic.
just the other night a freiend had a fight/breakup with his girlfriend. she said she didnt want to see him again. He says to me,”I feel I should go over there.” (1230 am). I told him it didnt matter what he felt, it was a bad idea to go over there now. He tend to stalk when he is rejected….
My understanding is that fruit flies have been used extensively in genetics research because their reproductive cycles are so short, so if you want to see how something unfolds over, say, 100 generations, you can get the results a lot quicker than with monkeys or guinea pigs (or hamsters!)…but if the subject being studied is mating patterns, then you wouldn’t seem to need a rapid succession of generations, and its unclear why you’d want to use this particular species.
Most recent: Laugh, Cry,or Both
@Summer
I haven’t read Sex at Dawn – I guess I’ll have to now.
There’s the rub. Kids do best with one mother and one father. I’ve read accounts of poly “families” that describe a system of sharing Google calendars that would challenge a professional event planner. I also recall one honest account where a father described his young son asking him why he slept with a new woman at night instead of his own mom.
Every experiment in the communal raising of children has been a failure.
Cultural strategies cannot possibly improve upon pair bonding for raising young.
” “Girls who fuck around are sluts, and guys get a pass for the same behavior”
What EXACTLY is this pass? If a girl was to get a pass, what would it look like? What pass are guys getting? Is it really the same behavior or are girls fucking around a lot more in a harem-like setting where a small percentage of guys are serviced by the majority of fuck-around girls? In terms of relationships, how are girls negatively impacted by this so-called double standard?
@Ramble
You raise an important point, which is that we like to struggle and solve problems. The reward is sweeter than a quick gratification.
It has been suggested that men who QUIETLY dismiss promiscuous women for marriage are shaming them.
I file it under,”personal preferences” nothing more.
HanSolo – thanks! I don’t mind acknowledgement for something I believe deserves it. My issue has always been being praised for doing the things I believe I should do anyway. For instance, lots of praise from my boss at work drives me nuts, because they are paying me to do a good job. I don’t see the need for and feel awkward by compliments for doing what I’m paid to do. I’d rather they just give me a raise.
Besides, I’ve worked hard at this for awhile now. I’m willing to accept a little acknowledgement.
Ted my best “guess” is the double standard was invented by men to control womens behavior. Men used to control most everything when it came to women in society. In some cultures, they still do.
Religions are the foundation of moral belief. Religions were put in place to help control the masses. without that control, anarchy would be common place. Or so the ancients believed.
Ted — I agree that acknowledgement-worthy acknowledgement is nice. I often cringe at non-acknowledgement-worthy praise though. My mom has a special talent for bragging about me in cringe-inducing ways!
“the double standard was invented by men to control womens behavior.”
That makes no sense as it is a lot more fun to get laid a lot. Something is missing from that supposition.
@ Tom
Ah, yes, the famous Double Standard. Men who screw around are awesome, but women who screw around are dirty.
As another poster said, this idea does not originate in the Bible, which states that adultery and fornication are bad for both (this is my view as well.)
But where does it originate?
According to Vox Day, it originates in the attraction preferences of males and females.
Alpha Status points to biology, paternity certainty, and avoidance of disease.
Only alpha males clean up in the modern SMP, which has the added hazard of men losing everything in a divorce, since the wife got bored with his nice-guy “respectful” behavior and the courts are openly biased against fathers. To assert that the current SMP represents some kind of desirable, fair, and egalitarian social evolution is a complete fiction. The so-called “acceptance” of promiscuity and “attitudes changing” is just people going along to get along — because if they say the opposite, they are shouted down as “BIGOTED RAPIST SEXIST PHALLOCENTRIC CAVEMEN WITH SMALL DICKS” or something. People don’t like being socially shamed, especially by those with power over their livelihoods.
It has been suggested that men who QUIETLY dismiss promiscuous women for marriage are shaming them.
I file it under,”personal preferences” nothing more.
——————————
There is no good, comfortable, practical or useful reason to prefer otherwise. Thus the universal popularity of the preference.
HanSolo – “My mom has a special talent for bragging about me in cringe-inducing ways! ”
YES THIS! I’m 42 years old and my mother STILL does this to me from time to time. Mostly with my SO though, which is amusing as hell since she obviously agrees I’m pretty cool. It is truly embarrassing…
Tom – the point I was making is that so many people like to shove that double standard out there as proof of why “men suck” so often, when in fact if we actually followed morality the way it is described in most religions, there IS no double standard. Men AND women are supposed to pretty much remain chaste. I never saw the memo saying it was OK for men to slip, but not women. Although I will fully acknowledge that it is far more “socially acceptable” for men to fuck around at will, I never agreed to that standard, and therefore I don’t feel like I should be held in contempt FOR that standard. And, at least in years past I would suspect that the majority of men felt the same, with only the guys that could actually pull off “playing the field” being the ones all for controlling women’s sexuality while enjoying their own.
Susan, yes, kids love/crave/NEED stability. From the moment a baby is born he/she prefers the sound of mother’s voice, scent and general vicinity to a strangers’, and likes to be in a similar environment as the womb (for example swaddling which constricts movement). They bond intensely to their caretakers who are generally parents.
I remember reading about how kids were very traumatized by the scene in Bambi where the mother dies. It was a huge upset to their young psyches. Kids do not want to lose their parents, and that is often what happens in the process of mom or dad taking on new partners. They can also be intensely upset by the time and attention that their parents spend on “strangers” (or lovers in poly communities).
So, from the perspective of children, poly/communal/multi-female/multi-male arrangements are NOT appealing whatsoever. Sorry Sex at Dawn promoters. It’s a total promotion of selfishness.
“The so-called “acceptance” of promiscuity and “attitudes changing” is just people going along to get along”
But the ever-increasing push back against that “going along to get along” nonsense are causing a shit load of angst out there, and among some on this board right now, apparently.
“Men AND women are supposed to pretty much remain chaste”
It is women who are holding up whatever “standard” – double, triple whatever – by accepting promiscuous men as life mates. Tell them to stop doing that
@ Abbot
And that’s where the Internet comes in. It allows people to break the “going along to get along” mentality anonymously, offering alternative views to the dominant consensus, whatever it is.
@ Abbot #143
That’s the other important thing — all this talk of modern sexual expectations puts all the onus on men to behave and “respect women as women” while women must be sexually and romantically rewarded regardless of what they do — even if they don’t respect men as men.
To me, Tom represents the Establishment view of sexual relations. Mind you, I don’t consider “the Establishment” false merely because it is dominant, but when its most cherished beliefs are disproved by science (there’s been a LOT more research on mate choice and sexual difference than Bateman, to say nothing of what Roissy has observed), I see no reason to respect their authority on this matter.
If you tell me that it’s the 21st century and everything is changing so STOP BEING A CAVEMAN, I don’t care, because numerology is bullcrap.
“Tom represents the Establishment view of sexual relations”
Well, the established vocal minority seeking acceptance for an experiment that they, at best, feel uneasy about.
I am a strong advocate of DNA tested to verify paternity since I have more than a few children being raised by clueless men. So I know exactly how women game the system by lining up the meal ticket than looking to have fun – or one might say the best genetic material for their children. Of course women scream against DNA verification since few men want to raise, or support, another man’s bastard.
Trust, but verify isn’t only a good motto for national defense.
@ Doc #148
Seconded. Mandatory paternity testing for all births now.
Makes you wonder why women are so strongly against it. If she’s doing nothing wrong, she shouldn’t worry.
Why are we talking about Double Standards?
We haven’t got two standards for one thing.
We have one standard for the egg laying, resource intensive scenario and another for the seed scattering low investment scenario.
Of course we do, we’re comparing eggs and sperm.
Anybody wailing about ‘double standards’ is using the intellect of a three year old, “it’s not FAIR” waaahh!!
Maybe I wanted to be a rockstar, but my natural lack of musical ability made that a non-starter, do I get to piss and moan about how unfair things are? how my feewings are hurt and I’m unhaaaapy? No I don’t, time to put your big boy/girl pants on and Grow the fuck up.
Just1x
We have one standard for the egg laying, resource intensive scenario and another for the seed scattering low investment scenario.
______________
and what do we have when we remove pregnacy from the equation as the pill did?
If you think there is no double standard in this society, I just dont know what to say.
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