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From: rawlins@iuvax.UUCP (Gregory J. E. Rawlins)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Rape: a genetic catastrophe
Message-ID: <5794@iuvax.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jan 88 17:40:57 GMT
References: <517@gtx.com> <5129@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <2201@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <3755@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <361@rruxa.UUCP> <5159@c <1932@bsu-cs.UUCP> <574@xyzzy.UUCP> <1966@bsu-cs.UUCP> <587@xyzzy.UUCP>
Reply-To: rawlins@iuvax.UUCP (Gregory J. E. Rawlins)
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 27

In article <587@xyzzy.UUCP> throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) writes:
>> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
>> What's interesting is the following question:  Why are some people so
>> opposed to the hypothesis that rape reflects our genetic make-up?  
>
>I don't doubt this for a minute.  *Everything* humans do "reflects our
>genetic make-up" to some degree.  I just doubt that things are as simple
>as "rape increases reproductive fitness... there, we understand it now."

Exactly. A lot of people tend to believe that nature is teleological.
The thing to keep in mind is that a specific adaptation always has side
effects (as a simple example, think of sickle-cell anaemia).  And the
more complex the organism the more side effects there are to any
specific new adaptation.  When viewed from a human point of view these
side effects may be "good" or "bad" (perhaps i should simplify even
more for the moralists out there to "nice" and "not nice" :-). Whatever
was the specific reproductive advantage to our particular hormonal
balance and large brain outweighed any disadvantages that are also
associated with our hormonal balance and large brains otherwise we
wouldn't be here to argue about it.  *That's all*. If people insist on
looking for reproductive advantage in every human behaviour mechanism
they deserve whatever they find.

I wish to see this discussion dropped from sci.bio.
	gregory.
----
Gregory J. E. Rawlins - rawlins@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu