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Re: Breast Size (Was: Re: Homosexuality and genetic determinism)
Lemonhead (karpiak@uiuc.edu)
Wed, 31 May 1995 20:22:35 -0500
On 29 May 1995, Bryant wrote:
>
> Where do you read in the ethnographic record that "constant movement"
> typifies human cultures? The San can be fairly depicted this way, but
> nothing close to a majority of cultures, IMO.
>
The majority of cultures *today* may be quite sedentary, but
that was not so before, at the earliest, the Upper Paleolithic or so,
between 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.
> Game theory shows that adaptations leading to *individuals'* success in
> group interactions will be favored. What was described is an
> "adaptation" that benefits the group while lowering the fitness of the
> adaptation's owners. No game theory model supports such a scenerio, and
> there is no evidence for group-selected adaptations of this nature
> anywhere biologists have looked.
>
How does it lower the fitness of the adaptation's owner? By
having less children, the woman can focus more attention on each
individual child. In a species in which each individual's welfare
depends on a *lot* of learning in childhood, mother's whose children have
been taught well will be more successful in that each child will be able
to survive longer and more healthfuly.
A mother who has just a handful of children, yet each lives a
long life in which they produce just as many children has the same if not
a greater darwinian fitness that a mother who has many more children, but
is unable to take care of them all, so many of them die. These dead
children are a wasted investment.
Isn't this a trend among primates in general, putting more of
your eggs in one basket? Human children do have a longer childhood than
any other primate, so that would seem to support the idea that there is
an increased investment for each child among humans.
--
Kev K
karpiak@bastard.org
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