Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!unmvax!nmt.edu!wgpsy471 From: wgpsy471@nmt.edu (Bill Grother) Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: The function of sex? Summary: Beyond natural selection... Keywords: Sociobiology, sex, morality, function, adaptations Message-ID: <1991May9.201140.3258@nmt.edu> Date: 9 May 91 20:11:40 GMT References: <635@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> <1991May9.003218.3510@midway.uchicago.edu> Followup-To: sci.bio Distribution: na Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Lines: 89 In article <1991May9.003218.3510@midway.uchicago.edu> lecl@quads.uchicago.edu (elizabeth e. leclair) writes: >In article <635@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> jcollier@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au (John Donald Collier) writes: >>For example, humans are adapted so that ovulation is concealed, thus much >>sexual activity serves no direct reproductive function (though, the >>essential function may be perserved, since there is at least the >>deception in the participants that reproduction is possible). >Furthermore, sexual intercourse is the basis for a variety of other >>social functions that it is difficult to classify as biologically >>perverse without knowing already the biological function of sex, which >>is the issue that is in question. >> > Two things here: > > 1) What is the "biological function" of sex? This has been argued a > lot from various evolutionary perspectives. The immediate function > of sex is obviously that of reproduction. There are forms of reproduction, > however, which do not involve sex (int he sense of meiosis or gametic > mixing). Arguments for the prevalence of sexual reproduction (= sex > with meiosis) involve claims for the long-term benefit of increased > and changeable variation in the offspring of such organisms which is > provided by such mixing. Sex, by its present nature, allows the potential for a greatly varied genetic structure; that is to say, sex started out simply as a method for bringing about reproduction, but now comes to encompass (at least in humans) a wide variety of behaviors associated with sex and sexuality, thereby allowing genetic mixing over an incredible range. > 2) What is "biologically perverse" about contraception? > > Arguing strictly as a "natural-selection strategist", one might claim > that the only thing that could be "wrong" with contraception is that > it decreases your reproductive potential-- reproduction potential > being the only currency or standard of "goodness" that we will accept. > Contraception as used by humans does not demonstrably result in decreased > reproductive output. Although many people use contraception to > influence that timing and spacing of pregnancies, they do not > necessarily have fewer children than they could. It might be possible > that spacing out your children with intermittent contraception gives > healthier, better babies and a healthier mother than one who is > popping kids out all the time. This would be a benefit in reproductive > capability. Latency is an important issue here...because of social and economic structures that man has erected (no pun intended), it is not as acceptable in our society nowadays to have a great number of children; in the past, we were strictly farmers and artisans, and children were important for the potential addition of hands to help tend the work. With the industrial boom of the past century and the subsequent rise of the city, large families are no longer as necessary or favorable as they once were...but be that as it may, the latency of past reproductive strategy is still with us, and we continue to have children at a rate our new societal structure cannot support... > True, socities which practice contraception are often those with decreased > birth rates, but this has done nothing yet to limit the reproductive > capacity of the human species as a whole. We are still exploding all > over the planet, despite individual reproductive restraint by some. In > this condition we might imagine that those who use contraception to > limit their own reproductive potential to, say, only one child per couple, > are enhancign the survivial value of that child by not providing more > little brothers and sisters to fill up the planet faster. In the latter > case, none of the children might survive the crowded, polluted conditions. > In the former, one might survive. One is better than none by any > estimation of reproductive fitness. Given these conditions, then, > contraception is biologically "smart" and "good", rather than "perverse." And let's face facts: we humans are the only species on the planet which can alter its genetic destiny...through our technology, birth defects and other malformities which in a natural selection setting would not be propogated, now can survive in the atmosphere of artificial selection our technology has created...each and every unborn child now has a chance to survive and explore its potential...this allows a continuance of population expansion, as the natural barriers to overpopulation are taken down...the only thing that now stands in the way of an overcrowded and dying Earth is nature...what happened to the dinosaurs could happen to us given the right conditions, and more importantly, the disaster does not have to be natural, but can be man-made. Before anybody gets on my case, let me say that I'm not advocating the killing off of babies with genetic defects or the eradication of "bad genetic material." What I am trying to suggest is that by switching from natural to artificial selection we are changing the mode and strength of propogation of our species in such a way as to seriously strain the life support capabilities of our world, which not only affects us but all other species on the planet...and while we are responsible for the overpopulation that is going on, we also have the tools to stop it...contaception is just one form of population control that we will have to turn to to slow this runaway train called propogation...and we will also have to think about sex in a different light; we will have to stop looking at it as only the reproductive potential of our species, but as the catalyst for changes which affect the whole planet...we will not be able to abandon sex, but we must learn to control it.