Xref: utzoo sci.bio:835 soc.men:2468 soc.women:9007 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe Message-ID: <563@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 17 Jan 88 20:29:49 GMT References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3755@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <361@rruxa.UUCP> <5159@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <263@vsi1.UUCP> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 64 > steve@vsi1.UUCP (Steve Maurer) > let be first reiterate the strict definition of "rape" I have been > using, and what it implies for humans: Rape is a reproductive action > which promotes the genetic interests of the individual rapist against > the species (or society) as a whole. [...] > I use this definition not out of any particular malice or lack > of empathy, but rather because it (as numerous unfortunate victims > can attest) is the correct one. Say *WHAT*? This definition is remarkably poor, since it excludes many acts that are essentially indistinguashable from the defined act, except that the rapist can be very, very sure that no reproductive advantage is to follow. Rape of prepubescent females, males of all sorts, and post-menopausal females spring to mind just for starters. Something that distinguishes between an act perpetrated against an 8-year-old and the exact same act perpetrated against an 18-year-old misses the point rather severely, I would think. The misclassification Steve indulges in in this "definition" of rape, of course, obscures the rather obvious fact that the hypothesis that rape behaviors are caused by a "selfish gene" in an attempt to reproduce is really a rather remarkably poor hypothesis. We are to believe that this gene provokes a fine-tuned and quite complex aggresive behavior, and at the same time this behavior is so poorly adapted to its hypothetically intended effect that the behavior is quite often directed against targets totally incapable of impregnation. Defining the problem away by saying that it isn't rape (and thus perhaps not caused by the "selfish gene") if the target isn't impregnable is silly, and complicates things. It is much simpler to look for an adaptave advantage in the behavior which is unrelated to reproduction, since it is fairly clear that the contexts where the act is performed are often unrelated to reproduction. And note that even assuming some adaptive advantate to rape, the idea that a particular adaptive behavior is gene-regulated is premature. It is adaptive behavior for humans to build dams for flood control, but we don't suppose that this behavior is directly genetically regulated. It may be adaptive for humans to rape in some sense or another (in fact, this is likely, at least in the same sense that it is "adaptive" sometimes to steal or murder). But a *reproductive* advantage? Nonsense. A *genetically* *regulated* behavior? A premature conclusion at best, to the point of seeming willfully obtuse. Certainly saying that this shaky hypothesis is "the correct" one is ridiculously uninsightful and premature. To summarize: The hypothesis that rape in humans is a reproductive strategy is ill-justified on the face of it, because the class of rape-like behaviors in humans clearly includes cases where no reproductive advantage can possibly follow. Further, the hypothesis that this behavior, whatever its strategy, is directly gene-regulated is premature at best, and dangerously misleading at worst. -- Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. --- Alan J. Perlis Moon calls them Fortran Machines and Lisp Machines, but I would prefer to call them fuzzy mammals and pterodactyls myself. --- Richard P. Gabriel -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw