Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!rising
From: rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising)
Subject: rage, and group selection
Message-ID: <1988Jan11.103521.6006@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Mon, 11-Jan-88 10:35:18 EST

First a question, then a comment.  The question, How do yoy know that
a male duck is on autopilot--and a male human isn't?

Comment:  Concerning orangutans.  Although it certainly may in effect
be "useful to the species" for young males to occasionally copulate with
adult females, presumably the females permit this because it is adaptively
useful to themselves--perhaps for the reason suggested (the old, dominant
male may be sterile.  To imply that the behaviour exists because it is
adaptive to the species is teleological.

--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:   Jim Rising
Mail:   Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:   {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!rising