"Granted, humans probably evolved to have specific gender roles, with men being polygynous and women being monogamous around the world. Historically, men played the field and got married, so they had their cake and ate it later, but women who tried to do the same failed, either due to social pressure and harassment, or because they were deemed undatable. Most people still support this model and claim that “that’s just the way it is.” But there are two https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5o3wH27lU0"]fallacies involved in this type of thinking. First of all, human life has changed substantially from what it was 250,000 years ago, for example with the advent of contraception and the Pill, therefore we no longer need to blindly accept whatever evolution foists upon us. Secondly, this type of thinking is an example of the naturalistic fallacy: that just because something is natural, then society ought to respect and uphold it. Besides, if it weren’t for variation, evolution wouldn’t exist in the first place." wildsting.blogspot.com
Contraception is a recent development and it takes time for society opinion as a whole to change. Evolution is a slow process. Check out the mating rituals of our closest ancestors (chimps). They live in a commune where the females mate with as many males as she can when she is fertile. This way no male knows which offspring in the community are his and this cuts down on infantcide.
You're oversimplifying what evolutionary psychology is, it's a pretty broad topic that goes beyond the love and sex topics of this forum. Also the naturalistic fallacy is not "that just because something is natural, that society ought to respect and uphold it". It states that just because something is natural, that the said thing is good. (this is not true) The naturalistic fallacy has nothing to do with cultural norms about sexual morals or behavior that's culture. People have tried to argue that ___ behavior is the natural state and should be upheld, but that correlation isn't even on solid founding either.
Wow, this is interesting. I swear I heard opposite theories, whereby the female only mates with the alpha male, but betas constantly harass the females, and attack the alphas in packs. Betas batter females at every opportunity, so that they will be submissive within the short window when the alpha isn't mate guarding, and they can copulate. Then the alpha is likely to commit infanticide, if there's reason to believe the infant is not his. Sources?
Are chimps really aware of the causes of pregnancy? I thik it's more likely that they're driven to mate from innate instinct rather than a concious desire to father a son or daughter.
It's unconscious, yet that's one of the downfalls of Darwinism: language. It's nigh impossible to talk about evolution without sounding as though it's a conscious process because of language expressive limitations, as such. Yet, it's an unconscious process. Chimps unconsciously guess which offspring are theirs, yet when we describe the process linguistically, we say that chimps "want" to kill off other chimps' babies "in order to" be dominant within the gene pool of a give chimp society. Yet, so such wants or reasons exist. As you say, it's all instinct from what I understand.
If a community of chimps is attacked by another stronger community and the females are taken the first thing that is done is to kill all the existing infants because females will not become fertile while nursing young. Same goes for gorillas which live in a 1 male with a harem of females group...if a young male comes along and drives off the existing male and claims the females then he will first kill all the existing offspring. This is seen all over nature.
I think mostly in tournament species, where pair-bonding is more likely. Non-tournament species are more likely to rely on sperm competition. Bonobos, etc. I believe humans are somewhere in between a tournament species and not. Hence the emphasis on social monogamy, and all the conflict over cheating, gangbang and bukkake porn, etc.
This probably has to do with the fact that women that play the field often got saddled with the babies while the man is free to take off and sow his seed elsewhere. Men don't like to get saddled with our men's kids..... just ask a single mom how fast men run when they find out she has a kid....The two genders have different roles to play when it comes to making babies..... And gender roles arise from this...... And while the line between these roles is blurred in today's modern world they still exist.
Probably why chimps have enormous testes in comparison to body size..... And why gorilla have a sack full of pebbles. Sperm competition
I'm not sure. I thought both chimps and gorillas pair-bond. Bonobos, sperm-compete. Although, it's never that black and white. Humans appear to do both.
Natural seems to be one of the most misused words in the english language and is always being used to imply that something is good or bad (unnatural). There are "natural remedies", and everything from shampoo to alternative medicines to food is advertised as containing natural ingredients. Natural is an advertising buzzword, with the implication that because something is natural it must be good. Never mind that nature provides us with many poisons and toxic substances. Meanwhile people spout rubbish about how homosexuality is "unnatural" (and so by implication bad), despite occurring in many hundreds of animal species which in my book makes it pretty "natural". Interesting fact: up to 94% of sexual activity in giraffes is between two males (no-one knows how lady giraffes feel about this). As to the actual topic, I'm always sceptical about many claims made in the name of evolutionary psychology. To often they seem to be nice pet theories made without any actual evidence and used to justify our current social norms as something ordained by nature. Never mind that throughout human history there have been many different cultural norms.
In any animal species, the size of their testicles, relative to their body size, is directly proprtionate to how often they mate.
There are gender specific traits. Both sexes have the same traits but to varying degrees. Some of it is biological and some of it is social. We are a conglomeration of our bodies and our societies in which we live. Women are as likely to cheat on husbands as the husbands are. Most men cheating on wives are with cheating women or else there's a small number of women who are cheating with lots of husbands. Polygamy isn't for every woman or man and neither is monogamy. Different strokes for different folks as they say. I married a woman with five kids by three different men and have no problem with raising them. I love her for what she is and know we will never have kids of our own.
