True, although I hope you’re not suggesting that there is zero genetic contribution to alcoholism. It’s pretty well documented. There isn’t an alcoholism gene, but then it’s wrong 99% of the time to assume that only one gene has an influence. It’s likely several genes, although some might be more strongly implicated.
There might even be an advantage to males (I assume we’re talking guys?) being nervous around girls: As the tabloid evolutionists like to state, males have the “genetic drive”* to impregnate as many women as possible, so they are disposed to fool around. Women have the genetic drive for a stable relationship to help raise the children, so they prefer monogamous men.
If a male is shy around women, odds are he is not a macho sleeping around, but a modern male who helps with rearing the children.
*Obviously, this is highly debatable if evolution works this way, or if it’s just a lame excuse for men who want to license to be unfaithful.
No but as you said in the second post, if people who become nervous around the opposite sex, short people and homely people are not the ones who pass down the genes, then the gene for modulating nervousness around the opposite sex should have disappeared. But yes I see learned factors also contribute to nervousness.
Because the last two examples clearly present situations the individual wants to survive, but nervousness around the opposite sex can inhibit reproduction, which runs counter to the other main objective.
It’s pretty strange when you think about it that the gender frequency is approximately 50:50…seems like a proportion of men are, and always have been, surplus to requirements…
Just to add more evo-psych; I don’t think that it is just about the alpha male kicking ass: generally social stigma affects humans a lot, and the reason for this is believed to be that for our ancestors, getting cast out of the group was a virtual death sentence.
Hence the cost/benefit to our ancestors was not the same as it is for us. You could be risking a lot by making a clumsy play for the “wrong” female, and your nervousness is a reminder of that fact. Even though it’s unhelpful now.
Also I agree that culture plays a huge part. I remember my first attempts at talking to girls “that way” were absurdly influenced by what I’d seen in films and TV (e.g. when she mentioned that her father was dead I immediately responded with “I’m sorry” :smack:)
i agree with Blake that it’s not that we’re genetically predisposed to being nervous around the opposite gender but a much more general response stemming from humans being congenitally risk-averse.
hypothetically if people walked around and there was a HUD display of “flirt success odds” people would be a lot less nervous. possibly more depressed though because humans are also more likely to key in on the failures than the successes and seeing so many low %'s would be a huge downer.
This should be stickied and linked to every time someone asks “What’s the evolutionary purpose of …”
Speaking as someone who is in the process of devoting his life’s work to studying evolution, it’s vital to understand that not everything in life is the result of millions of years of fine-tuning by natural selection.
Sometimes shit just happens.
I’m inclined to agree with a lot of this, but also think that it’s sometimes beneficial for girls to get nervous in front of guys. They blush and fidget and do all kinds of things that indicate her youth, which guys dig.
But other than that, probably you guys are right.
Girls also find nervous guys charming. Also, very few people remain that way for their entire lives. Most men learn to pick up the cues and to become more confident – or, at least, confident enough to be attractive to a woman.
This is almost exactly backwards. Evolutionary biologists clarified this decades ago, but the misconception persists.
Exactly. Threads like this are essentially an invitation to invent a myth.
A fun exercise is to see how easy it is to come up with credible sounding explanations for the opposite situation. You could say girls like nervous guys because they are less likely to get killed doing stupid stuff in a hunting expedition, or that nervousness conceals one’s actual ability, and that actually causes it to get estimated up (he’s usually good, but he’s nervous.) You can keep yourself entertained all day making up just-so stories for scenarios that don’t exist. Ultimately, your backwards-engineered explanations for situations that do exist are pretty much equally lacking in credibility.
Do we have any proof, anyway, that being nervous around the opposite sex is universal? It could be a product of society. After all, it seems unlikely that in an early hunter-gatherer band situation that there would be much room for nervousness- you probably knew every girl you’d ever meet from chidlhood.
I’d say it’s more of a learned behavior then a hard wired one. Looking at the animal kingdom we see many examples where there is competition to mate and many don’t get that opportunity (mainly for males, but there are female exceptions, like mearkats). Human society seems to have a like pattern, which could be responsible for the nervousness.
The “Uncle Hypothesis” invented to give gay people an evolutionary purpose covers this one nicely.
Those who are nervous and awkward (and, what the hell, the short and ugly guys, too), best serve their genetic line by NOT reproducing. Instead, they remain single, and their resources (money, time and attention) are lavished on their nieces and nephews, instead. By helping their sisters and brothers raise *their *children, their genes are passed on through them, albeit indirectly, at a greater rate than those of families who don’t have nervous/awkward/short/ugly family members spreading the familial resources too thin by having children of their own.
See how easy that is? It’s total bunk, of course. Unless it’s not. But the fact is, we just don’t know.
Well, I basically agree that this is a WAG thread, but I don’t see the problem if it is moved to IMHO, or GD.
It would be nice to have an EP discussion for once, without a torrent of rolleyes.
People get laid because of booze: Ugly people. Nervous people. Dumb people.
The survival of a huge % of humans with various (seemingly bad) traits can often be credit to the inventors, creators, etc of many other things.
They pretty clearly get some as the behavior still exists.
No, my main point was that this is a courtship behavior and females do the real choosing.
And there are definitely females that like the shy nervous males.
Pick-up theory says in caveman times if you fucked up with a chick you were ostracized by the tribe. And a guy who was cast out of the group to try to survive on his own back then was pretty much guaranteed to die.
But like someone else said in this thread, we can just bullshit the reasons for it into anything we want, so I wouldn’t put much stock in that. Just offering up another random explanation.
Some people don’t get nervous around the opposite sex, so I figure it’s a learned behavior. At some point in your life, maybe a series of small incidents (a few TV shows where a guy was nervous to talk to a girl, a brother/sister being nervous, friends being nervous, maybe you approached a member of the opposite sex and they reacted harshly, maybe you were brought up to believe the opposite sex holds the “key” to sweet love-makin’ so it’s a much bigger deal in your mind, etc.) you learned that you should be nervous around them.
Some people didn’t get that lesson so they read something like this thread and go “I don’t understand, why would someone be nervous?”
Those guys get laid a crapload. 
- TWTTWN
None of this is scientifically accurate. Humans (both male and female) are not promiscuous, but are a pair-bonding, socially monogamous species with relatively low rates of extra-pair copulations, and exploratory mating between pair bonds.
If we assume the alpha males are the douchebags and nervous types are us normal decent guys, then of course evolution woud require a decent ratio of nervous obedient sheep to follow the alpha males. Letting someone else run out in front screaming in battle and swinging the giant battle axe and take all the arrows is a valid evolutionary strategy too.
Or to quote Ted Knight in Caddyshack, “the world needs more ditchdiggers too…”
Maybe I’m dense, but can you clarify, I don’t really understand this part?