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From: al@gtx.com (0732)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Is duck rape "natural"?
Message-ID: <531@gtx.com>
Date: 18 Jan 88 16:40:40 GMT
References: <517@gtx.com> <248@nancy.UUCP> <6852@ihlpa.ATT.COM> <969@rocky.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: al@gtx.UUCP (Al Filipski 839-0732)
Distribution: na
Organization: GTX Corporation, Phoenix
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In article <969@rocky.STANFORD.EDU> andy@rocky.stanford.edu (Andy Freeman) writes:
>
>In the cases I'm familar with (friend observed the behavior), there
>is no apparent evolutionary advantage, nonetheless, the male ducks
>gang-rape a female duck until she escapes or they get bored, long
>after she dies.  I think the flock size is stable.  I'm sorry, I
>don't have a published reference or a learned explanation.  (It
>happens in Northfield, Minnesota.)
>
>Why don't people believe that animals and humans have behaviors
>that aren't advantageous?
>
Indeed, especially in the case of people, (sexual) behavior that seems
not to enhance fitness is very common:  Celibacy, homosexuality, oral
sex, etc.  There may be social or socio-biological explanations for
some of these (Maybe celibates help their siblings, with whom they
share genes) but on the whole I think that these "perversions" (to use
the word in a completely non-derogatory way) are just the result of
random deviations in our overly complex brain overwhelming the patterns
formed by natural selection.  That doesn't mean we can't find the
patterns in the midst of the noise, though.

Now an unscientific, anthropocentric musing about birds and reptiles:
I am amazed by the amount of what we would call "cruelty" in bird
society.  I had not heard the duck example above, but I have seen
chickens and pigeons single out a weak individual and peck it
without mercy.  My question is: why do so many people think of birds
as being "nice" compared to, say, reptiles, which are regarded as
creepy and suspicious. I'd trust a simple, honest reptile any day over
the vicious society of certain birds.  Why are reptiles so maligned?
The bird gets to be a symbol of freedom, and the snake gets to be the
symbol of "sin"?  Seems hardly fair.

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