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From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
Subject: Re: The persistance of homosexuality in a gene pool
Message-ID: <946.26b46888@desire.wright.edu>
Date: 30 Jul 90 22:04:08 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.022511.28161@mtcchi.uucp> <11095@netcom.UUCP> <1990Jul29.050038.24791@wolves.uucp> <10654@cs.utexas.edu>
Followup-To: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.psychology
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In article <10654@cs.utexas.edu>, turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
> -----
> 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. 
> 

This may be true of some cultures but I am fairly sure that the Aborigines in
Australia did not make the connection before European settlers came.  I
remember reading an article that described their beliefs and connected
production of a child with a spirit of some physical part of their environment.

> 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.

It has been speculated by anthropologists that at some time in the distant past
the majority of societies were matriarchal and that the male's role in
conception was misunderstood or ignored.  As for sexual desire being the main
impitous for reproduction, well, it works for the other animals.....  ;-)