(book) Sex at Dawn

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Permalink Reply by MaleficVTwin on July 22, 2010 at 7:41pm

Can't imagine why it would upset any rational person. Evidence of our evolution is just that, evidence. What we do or don't view as ethical is another matter entirely.

Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on August 14, 2010 at 4:52pm

Evidence of our evolution is just that, evidence. What we do or don't view as ethical is another matter entirely.

Ran into that head-on in a recent Anthropology class. Fundie Xian who kept getting all defensive over the facts, with the professor and many of the rest of us continually telling him, "Dude, no one is making an ethical judgement either way. It's simply a stated fact."

Permalink Reply by Owen Stacey on August 21, 2010 at 2:15am

I've just finished it and I highly recommend it to everyone. Being a biology major, I found the section "Bodies in Motion," which discusses the evidence from ape (humans included) anatomy, particularly fascinating. It's interesting to notice how many scientists are content to ignore overwhelming evidence in order to go on believing in what the authors, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, refer to as the "standard narrative" of human sexuality. To quote Richard Dawkins,

"Is it so very obvious that we can't love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don't at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Château Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don't feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends...why is erotic love the one exception that everyone instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it?"

Permalink Reply by Owen Stacey on August 26, 2010 at 3:15am

As an aside, I loved the chapter title "Sometimes a Penis Is Just a Penis."