Re: AAT (faces, fossils)
Danny (danny@cs.su.oz.au)
Mon, 9 May 1994 08:14:22 GMT
In article David Greene writes:
>NICHOLLS PHILIP A wrote:
>>For example, ventral-ventral copulation and human swimming are learned
>>behaviors and culturally variable.
>
>Not true. Culture has nothing to do with it. How modern man
>choosed to copulate today is irrelevant. The fact is that modern
>man's (and modern woman's) equipment is designed for VV mating.
>The female vaginal canal is tilted more forward than our cousins.
>Similar repositioning can be found in dolphins, whales, and manatees.
>They also mate VV.
I can't let this one go unchallenged!
Face to face copulation is not universal among human cultures.
Swimming has to be taught (a process that is sometimes traumatic),
and many, perhaps most, human beings never learn to swim. The idea
that all characteristics of an organism must be the direct result of
adaptive selection is roundly criticised in
Gould, S.J. and R.C. Lewontin. 1979. The spandrels of San Marco
and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptionist
programme. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 205:581-598.
This is a paper you should definitely read.
And don't forget that horses, dogs and cats can all swim too :-).
Danny Yee (danny@cs.su.oz.au).
|