Xref: utzoo soc.men:3060 sci.bio:1004
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!rdh
From: rdh@sun.uucp (Robert Hartman)
Newsgroups: soc.men,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Sexual selection
Message-ID: <46104@sun.uucp>
Date: 19 Mar 88 00:22:46 GMT
References: <1566@mmm.UUCP> <3138@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> <1164@microsoft.UUCP> <2402@saturn.ucsc.edu> <2686@calmasd.GE.COM>
Reply-To: rdh@sun.UUCP (Robert Hartman)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 12

In article <2686@calmasd.GE.COM> jnp@calmasd.GE.COM (John Pantone) writes:
>
>I would guess this is at least partly true, but my feeling is that the
>marked dimorphism  in humans is  the result of  physical adaptation to
>social roles.

I don't think that social roles are sufficient to account for the dimorphism,
in our secondary sexual characteristics.

I suspect that a more likely cause is that in the environmental settings in
which we began to diverge from the other great apes, there was a physical
advantage to these differences for child-rearing.  -bob.