Xref: utzoo sci.bio:3357 sci.med:18878 sci.psychology:3083
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: The persistance of homosexuality in a gene pool
Summary: Before written history ...
Message-ID: <10654@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 90 01:36:06 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.022511.28161@mtcchi.uucp> <11095@netcom.UUCP> <1990Jul29.050038.24791@wolves.uucp>
Followup-To: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 32

-----
I wrote:
>> Mr Hamilton is confusing the practicalities of today with the
>> realities that shaped human evolution.  Throughout most of the
>> human past, the desire to have children did not mean diddly
>> squat.  People copulated for desire or social reason, and lo and
>> behold the kids came along.  Planning births or avoiding it was
>> not really a factor.  Indeed, there is good reason to think that
>> early humans did not even know the connection between sex and
>> pregnancy.  

In article <1990Jul29.050038.24791@wolves.uucp>, wolfe@wolves.uucp (Wolfe) writes:
> 	Sorry to disappoint you, but there are very clear indications in the
> earliest known records that indicate that the relationship between sex
> and pregnancy were well known.

I fully realize that ancient cultures knew the basic facts of
reproduction.  But the past five or six thousand years during
which we have written records is only the small tail-end of the
few hundred thousand years during which humans have existed. 
Somewhere between the development of language and the later
development of written records and "ancient" cultures, our
ancestors discovered the relation between sex and babies. 

Some changes that archeologists see in *prehistoric* carvings are
interpreted (speculatively) to signal this discovery.  But even
if this interpretation is entirely offbase, the window does not
provide much time for great evolutionary change.  Something had to 
cause the early humans and proto-humans to reproduce, and this
something is undoubtedly sexual desire.  It might have changed some
since then, but I doubt it has changed drastically.

Russell