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Re: Questions on _Lucy's Child_
J. Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
Sun, 7 May 95 11:08:00 -0500
He> If you want a 'just so story', about two million years ago a population
He> of early Homo moved out into the treeless savanna. That created a number
He> of selective pressures that quickly led to:
He> 1. Pair bonding,
One question: if it led to pair-bonding, why did that end?
Keep in mind that, although there are many claims that humans are
"pair-bonded" ("imperfectly so" according to Melvin Konner), or
"monogamous" (according to Helen Fisher "This does not suggest that
partners are sexually faithful to one another"), these claims rely
on equating sex with marriage (when a casual knowledge of human
relations demonstrates that the two are only coincidentally related)
and the type of semantic gymnastics seen in the quotes above. These
quotes often come just before or after statistics that contradict them,
as per this Sarah Blaffer Hrdy quote: "Humans, of course, provide
another example of facultative monogamy. Approximately 20 percent of
human societies are monogamous, 80 percent polygynous."
Food for thought...
Jim Moore (j#d#.moore@canrem.com)
* Q-Blue 1.0 *
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