Ah-HAH! A Discworld reference!
(Credit Matthew Crosby, at.fan.pratchett, and Terry Pratchett)
I don’t see what difference that makes. There’s no reason to believe the dolphins actually know they’re procreating–they’re probably just thinking they’re getting some nookie. For that matter, some Darwinians argue that a lot of human rape actually is about reproduction, even if it’s not totally conscious. Think of how conquering armies used to forcibly take brides from their conquerees–what better way to establish your dominance over a place than to populate it with your kids?
Either that way, or through jus primae noctis.
Well, I’ll have to find my old college ethology text, but there was a species of lizard that not only raped, but engaged in gang homsexual rapes. Seems that the male organ is kept in a pouch and that males excrete a glue-like substance to seal up females after sex (to ensure that only their sperm gets a chance to fertilize her). The male gang rape was selected for on the basis of sealing up potential competitors for a while.
I have an interesting story to tell. It’s not exactly rape, but it’s worth telling nonetheless.
My family has a 2 year old fixed female Cairn terrier named Katie. My little brother, who is 8 years old, has a habit of playing a little too rough with her. My brother usually gets down on his hands and knees to slap her around a little. When Katie has had enough of the punishment, she growls and bares her teeth, and then runs behind my brother and mounts him like a champ. The little creature then proceeds to do the pelvic pump for about 30 seconds while the child laughs uproariously. Let me remind you, Katie is fixed and female.
My parents say this is some display of domination, but all I know is it’s a damn funny show.
Rape need not be an act of agression, for example the male fish that disquises itself as a female, and then fertilizes the true female’s eggs. So, the female will not always be aware of what is going on, and thus will not necesarilly react.
And that Hiryuu is a completely different topic altogether. Yes that sort of thing happens but how exactly does that relate to animals behaving in a non-selfish way?
We’ve explained that rape occurs, that it’s uncommon and why it’s uncommon from a selfish veiwpoint. Sure in cases where females can’t respond and there is minimal chance incapacitating retaliation it occurs, but how does that debunk the selfish gene argument?
What is your position here Hiryuu? That rape should occur more often based on genttic causes? That’s been explained well enough I think. That it should occur less often? How do you figure? That female choice shouldn’t be respected? That too has been explained very well.
Please enlighten us as to what exactly your logically supportable and contentious position here is. Agreeing that facts are facts does not a debate make, you need to use those facts to conclude something.
My conclusion is that because there are opportunities for non-consentual copulation which would result in success, that are not taken advatage of, genes are therefore not selfish.
Then you have a complete lack opf understanding of the theory so handily summed up by the soundbite ‘selfish gene’.
The selfish gene tehory simply states that every gene acts as though it has its own interests at heart. It may assist an organism to survive if that is the best way for it to survive, but it will equally kill its ‘host’ organism if that increases its survival prospects. This frees up much evolutionary speculation from the previous albatross of ‘survival of the fittest’ which assumed that an organisms genes were all working in concert to promote the fitness and health of the entire organism. WOrking with the selfish gene we can actually have orgnaisms ‘regress’ and allow for altruism because it’s only that one gene that is being selected, not the entire genome.
An effective gene is one that modifies an organisms, either behaviourally or physically, in such way as to maximise the chances of the gene being propagated. It is important to note here the use of the term maximise. No behavioural or physiavcl form will have perfect propagation success but some forms will have more success than others and it is towards this form that genes are forever driving the organism.
For any gene modulated behaviour we have two competing forces : risk and benefit. Risk is only the risk that the gene will fail to propagate, nothing more. Risk to the ‘host’ is meaningless provided such risk does not reduce the probability of reproduction. Benefit is only benefit in reproduction of that gene. Benefiting the orgnaism in other ways is meaningless so long as such benefits don’t increase the chance of the gene incraesing within the population.
Now with that knowledge in mind would you please give us examples of “opportunities for non-consentual copulation which would result in success, that are not taken advatage of.” Bare in mind here that because you are specifically talking about selfish genes success can only be measured in terms of increasing the frequency of that gene within a population.
You are an expert on what dolphins think? Please relate to me what their thoughts are on ‘nookie’. What point are you trying to make with this comment? Nowhere did I state that dolphins necessarily understand the correlation between their sexual behavior and procreation. They are driven to engage in sex, and rape behavior is one possible manifestation of this drive. This statement was made because the OP believed that: “sex seems to be consentual in the animal kingdom,” which is an incorrect assumption. In fact, he seems to be ignoring the evidence that was presented to him, and is persisting in this belief, but that is another story.
Do I believe that human behavior can also be explained in terms of selection? For the most part, yes, but to apply that to rape is another topic altogether, and one that I’m not sure I want to get into here.
As an aside, I really dislike the “selfish gene” metaphor. It is just too anthropomorphic. “Survival of the fittest” may have been misunderstood to mean survival of the whole organism, but it always meant the fittest at getting genes to be passed on.
And BTW, Stephen Pinker has a wonderful review of the data on rape by conquering forces in “How The Mind Works.” Essentially, a lot of warfare historically was to provide the means to rape. It is, he points out, so endemic that it was codified in multiple portions of the Bible. Rape by groups is of different risk than rape within a group, where waiting for your turn to rise to sufficient dominance by guile or skill is a more successful strategy.
Waverly, I don’t claim to be an expert on what dolphins think. I was just questioning why you were reluctant to call dolphin sexual violence “rape” based on its being motivated by reproduction vs. humans being motivated by violence/control. I don’t see why the two motives should be mutually exclusive, or why one should be called rape and the other should not be.
I agree with your basic refutation of the OP. I did not mean to offend.
domina: I’m not offended, I was sincerely confused about the point you were making. Your second post clears things up nicely. The reason I made the distinction is not really relevant to the debate here, but I did have a reason. While it would seem logical that there would be some kernel of primordial reproductive behavior beneath the layers of violence and control, I didn’t want some misguided individual to make the acrobatic leap to: “rape impulses are perfectly natural, so sayeth Darwin.” I also didn’t want someone to misunderstand, read that statement into the discussion, and walk away with hurt or angry. To be honest, it’s an interesting topic in and of itself; just one I think should be handled carefully.
Dseid: The selfish gene model is useful to teaching jr. high level science, but you are correct, it borders on hyperbole. The reason some people argue against ‘selfish genes’ rather than the body of work that supports natural selection (which is my personal preferred term) is because 1)they have already made up their mind and ‘selfish gene’ looks like an easier target then natural selection, and 2) they don’t want to understand in any greater detail.
Many times, when it’s the “selfish gene” versus the “selfish meme”, the meme wins out; in other words, lesser males in chimp groups will certainly want to mate with the females (whether the ladies are willing or not) but they won’t because they understand that they’re low in the pecking order compared to the dominant male. If the dominant male is killed or otherwise ousted, then the male usually takes over the harem, and there’s usually not much good that protest does.
You also have to consider that when groups of chimps war with each other, the winners take the sexually viable females and usually kill all the rest of the opposing group, including the juveniles. Males are expendable and represent a threat to the survival of the genes and memes of the dominant males, but females are a precious commodity primarily for their reproductive capability. A single male can impregnate a dozen females to produce a dozen babies in the same time that a single female can produce a single baby.
Are the chimps aware that they are procreating? [speculation]Hard to say. Maybe they know that sex is important for some reason or another, or maybe they’re just horny and don’t know why. But their bodies know what needs to be done to pass along the genes, and the instinct to mate suceeds whether or not the mind recognizes it.[/speculation]
As an aside, it seems like many of the people that I’ve talked to have the idea that if something is “natural” as opposed to “man-made”, then that thing is automatically “good” or in compliance with human standards of morality (no rape, no murder, etc). It’s an unfortunate tendency to project human morality on all of nature.
How about this from talk.origins?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html
Male homosexual stabbing rape with the intention of impregnating a female!
cuckoorex,
At the risk of crossing threadlines, a great example of “memes” winning out over “genes” is the tradition in the heights of the Catholic Church’s power for the best and the brightest to join the clergy and not pass on their genes.
But I’m not sure that I understand your example. “Lesser males” don’t rape within a group “because” it is a poor reproductive strategy. The social context would make successful impregnation of small likelihood, versus the grave and substantial risk of death or exile from the group which would cost any future chances at successful reproduction. And given the situation in which direct reproduction is of low liklihood, his next best strategy would be to help close relatives, with partially shared genotypes, to survive and reproduce. Beating the point made by others, a behavior can be selected for without any understanding on the part of the individual what selective advantage such a behavior serves. The dolphin’s motives, if he could express them, may be irrelevant to the evolutionary origins of the behavior. Likewise, DiscoBoy may state that his motive for cruising the bar is scarcely one of potential reproduction, but the origins of the drive to not go home and give himself a hand are inescable.
I do like your objection to the inherent goodness of all things natural. Many natural things are ugly and wrong.
This thread has me wondering … does human rape within our society have something to do with the sense of an aggressive individual male as not being part of the group, and thus released from the inborn inhibitions against intragroup rape? I am not familiar with the literature on human rape. Is the prototypical perpetrator a loner or someone with a sense of belonging raping a known acquaintance?
I doubt healthy, normal animals sexually assault each other. Selection of this behavior is not likely because-
1- males want their mating partner to produce their offspring, so it is not productive to attack and injure those they mate with.
2- highly aggressive males who might assault females would probably be in more conflicts overall with other males and females of their own species, as well as predators and prey, increasing their chances of getting injured and killed… thus reducing the length of their survival and having less time to reproduce… thus less offspring .
3- if they assault female potential mates, it would unlikely they would have any willing mates as they would be identified as unhealthy or defective or diseased. Females want healthiest, “best” males. With no cooperative mates, they will have less offspring.
There may be rare cases of diseased animals that would assault or rape others in their own species, but I think it would be a sign of mental damage and these animals would not likely reproduce
10 year old Zombie rape? :eek:
You are wrong. There has been plenty of evidence given in this thread that healthy, normal animals sexually assault each other all the time.
Utter nonsense.
This thread is somewhat uncomfortable to read, but I’m poking in here to offer that pregnancy/copulation is a form of dominance and sometimes human male rapists (when engaging in familial rape) want it to be their end goal.
I’ve always rejected the ‘can’t control himself’ thing with human males. With animals, not so sure. I think ‘rape’ is not just about consent, but also intent – in the non-human animal population.
Still, I felt kind of sad reading these stories. I’m not even an animal person.
I certainly don’t see the point in setting the “not selfish” bar any higher than that, let’s not be a bunch of moral tightasses. 