Using that logic, it would also be correct to say that evolution has a powerful urge to keep women fertile throughout their entire lives, yet menopause exists.
Recent studies point out that there may be an evolutionary advantage to menopause.
(The above link is to a blog entry about the study below)
“Why do women cease fertility rather abruptly through menopause at an age well before generalized senescence renders child rearing biologically impossible? The two main evolutionary hypotheses are that menopause serves either (i) to protect mothers from rising age-specific maternal mortality risks, thereby protecting their highly dependent younger children from death if the mother dies or (ii) to provide post-reproductive grandmothers who enhance their inclusive fitness by helping to care and provide for their daughters’ children. Recent theoretical work indicates that both factors together are necessary if menopause is to provide an evolutionary advantage. However, these ideas need to be tested using detailed data from actual human life histories lived under reasonably ‘natural’ conditions; for obvious reasons, such data are extremely scarce. We here describe a study based on a remarkably complete dataset from The Gambia. The data provided quantitative estimates for key parameters for the theoretical model, which were then used to assess the actual effects on fitness. Empirically based numerical analysis of this nature is essential if the enigma of menopause is to be explained satisfactorily in evolutionary terms. Our results point to the distinctive (and perhaps unique) role of menopause in human evolution and provide important support for the hypothesized evolutionary significance of grandmothers.”
Trains have powerful urges to run through tunnels, exuding clouds of steam and blasts of whistles. Yet trains that run head-on into other trains invite disaster.
I hate to think what that does to this argument!
ETA: Oops. Just realized I’m in GD. I’ll leave quietly.
Actually, my thoughts on the connetion between evolution and homosexuality are more complex than I’ve said so far. My point was that a simple, dirtect mechanism that turns people gay can’t exist. This was in response to the poster who talked about how powerfully hormones affect mice, inducing males to mount males. I responded that these hormones don’t get messed up in real life, do they?
I actually think there is a connection between evolution and homosexuality. I think that the trends of affluent, successful civilizations to become sexually liberal among many other things (and its converse: poverty leading to conservatism) is part of an instinct created by evolution itself. With the sexual liberalism comes, universally, homosexuality (whether it be in greece or modern western civilization).
Now the people who made a distinction between evolution and natural selection had an excellent point. It’s little recognized now, but evolution has developed many mechanisms besides natural selection. These are the mechanisms that yield many of our instincts for altruism, self-sacrafice, nervousness, truthfullness and countless other (mostly social) behaviors that dumb natural selection opposes.
You guys probably won’t understand what I’m trying to say, but my point is that egregious triggers for homosexuality (or self-sacrafice) natural selection will try to weed out. But more subtle, socially-based influences that are ultimately genetic in nature but complex in manifestation, could have been introduced nevertheless (for whatever reason).
p.s. i’m sorry i use ‘colorful’ anthropomorphic language, but you should know I obviously mean it metaphorically (not like some ID advocate might use it).
Wow, I hadn’t realized all those gay monkeys had discovered liberal democracy. We better keep an eye on them or they’ll start demanding suffrage and civil rights.
Oh, okay. No problem. Just so you know for the future, poetry threads tend to do better in Cafe Society. The Great Debates forum has a strong urge to weed out bad arguments.