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Monogamy May Have Evolved To Prevent Infanticide
sciencehabit writes "Human males and females have a strong tendency to live together in monogamous pairs, albeit for highly varied periods of time and degrees of fidelity. Just how such behavior arose has been the topic of much debate among researchers. A new study comes to a startling conclusion: Among primates, including perhaps humans, monogamy evolved because it protected infants from being killed by rival males."
Sometimes a bitch just needs to have an abortion.
why it hasn't evolved in lots of other species.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
and killing offspring is directly opposed to the core of evolutionary theory
Unless those offspring are in direct competition for food and reproductive access with your offspring. Then it makes a lot of sense evolution-wise.
Males who abandoned their offspring tended not to see their genes spread further. Seems quite obvious. What's actually puzzling is that so many species thrive *without* monogamy.
You don't know very much about evolution or science.
Been there, done that.
What a myopic view. You have a lot to learn about evolution, and even more so about dogma and religion. "Science" an esteemed science journal would unlikely stoop to sensationalize. Where do you get your bias -- FOX?
No, science is not religion, in the way you're implying it is. Science works by creating theories (either from educated guesses or observations, often both) and testing them.
If it can't be tested, it's not science*.
*Of course, one thing is not being capable of measuring something - the fact that light is affected by gravity took a while to test, for instance. That doesn't make it impossible to test.
and killing offspring is directly opposed to the core of evolutionary theory, which rewards the widest possible range of mates to guarantee diverse genetic combinations and the maximum chances for survival and spread of strong genes.
This may come as a complete surprise to you, but there do exist plenty of creatures out there that do kill the offspring and still haven't become extinct and there do exist plenty of creatures out there that do not kill their offspring and only mate with one or very few partners and still haven't managed to become extinct. Hell, there exists atleast one specific one that doesn't mate at all and produces only perfect clones of themselves, and still haven't become extinct. The point is, you cannot just lump different survival-strategies together like that and deny the existence or even the possibility for anything other than your one chosen one; what works for one type of a creature may not work for another, and the nature has the tendency of throwing all sorts of types of stuff on the wall and seeing what sticks.
If anything humans are polygamous. A third cheat and the reason the other two thirds don't is because of social, financial and other consequences or just aren't attractive enough to get someone to cheat with.
Evolutionary theory rewards a whole range of behaviors, some of which are in direct opposition to one another. Having as many surviving relations as possible is good for my genetic line. But given scarce resources, so is having as few as competitors as possible. Which is exactly what this study addresses -- the situation where infanticide becomes significant enough to drive social changes.
Have you ever stopped to think why male humans are attracted to female features which indicate fertility and whether or not she is pregnant?
It takes a female chimpanzee 4 to 5 years to teach her offspring enough to survive. During that time, she does not come into heat. Humans, on the other hand, can have babies about once a year. A single female could not raise them all on her own without some help. Today, we call that helper a husband and father. Monogamy means more babies.
Don't stop where the ink does.
It's gotten to the point where anyone who uses the word "neckbeard" can be assumed to have a neckbeard.
The current fortune is perfect for this thread:
"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -- William James
Just beautiful.
Just because someone else has a different hypothesis doesn't mean this one is wrong.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Humans are not brought into heat by the absence of young, and killing offspring is directly opposed to the core of evolutionary theory, which rewards the widest possible range of mates to guarantee diverse genetic combinations and the maximum chances for survival and spread of strong genes.
Male squirrels will gnaw the nuts off their male offspring if the mother neglects to defend them constantly. Last I checked squirrels seemed to be enjoying reasonable reproductive success ;-)
What you're saying isn't necessary false, but it also isn't in opposition to the claims of this study, other than you're implying causation -- this study specifically addresses your point and argues only that, while long-term support certainly benefits from monogamy, it may not be the *cause* of monogamy.
And infidelity has evolved to ensure that you will have many adult males willing to defend your own offsprings.
That "just so" story gets me in the feels, therefore it isn't evo-psych STEMlord oppression.
Are you saying that scientists have an evolutionary predisposition to promote evolution?
I love my sig.
How does monogamy change who is in competition with whom? There is no evolutionary mechanism to enforce monogamy. From a purely genetic standpoint there is no benefit to monogamy for a strong male.
Articles like this are just freeze dried beef pasta boiled up in 100 gallon vats and thrown to the neckbeards who gobble it up while slathering vaseline and yanking each other off.
Shit isn't even pretending to be science any more. It's just some asshole in a lab coat leading a revivial in a Kentucky tent.
Repeat after me (and Darwin): survival of the fittest. Competition within a species is one of the quickest ways to make its genepool more competitive.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
primates tend to be in bands
Except for the ones that aren't, like orangutans, a close relative of ours.
Mogamy happen because it takes a long time to rise the offspring, and it needs the support of both the female and male
That's one pressure. TFS mentions another. There can be more than one reason, and there usually are.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
It's gotten to the point where the word "neckbeard" generates a firehose of butthurt.
Fucking crybabies.
Here is a quote from Euripedes a writer from Ancient Greece where they had polygamy:
A second wife is hateful to the children of the first; A viper is not more hateful.
Monogamy evolved because it makes great furniture.
I believe evolution happens, both historically and currently, and on scales both grand and small.
But I'm tired of so-called scientists making news stories out of un-testable speculations about how something or another could have been a factor in our evolutionary past.
That kind of speculation is for late-night living-room talk, not scientific journals.
How does monogamy change who is in competition with whom? There is no evolutionary mechanism to enforce monogamy. From a purely genetic standpoint there is no benefit to monogamy for a strong male.
Articles like this are just freeze dried beef pasta boiled up in 100 gallon vats and thrown to the neckbeards who gobble it up while slathering vaseline and yanking each other off.
Shit isn't even pretending to be science any more. It's just some asshole in a lab coat leading a revivial in a Kentucky tent.
The argument is that your statement about a strong male being better off without monogamy seems right but isn't, because if strong males fail to stick around and ensure the children they conceived survive to reach adulthood and carry on the cycle, it won't happen, and their "strong" genes will be wiped from the face of the earth.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Family takes a lot of resources. Poor man could afford only one female and women had no choice to begin with. Rich man could afford more women and they certainly did.
Tip: humans are social animals. The survival of the species and close group is just as important for the strong male to spread his genes as his own survival is. Your knowledge on the subject seems cursory at best, though I suspect that you are trolling.
It makes sense in a strange way.
"Human males and females have a strong tendency to live together in monogamous pairs"
As much as they have a strong tendency towards not being able to afford harems.
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
I think that it is "Evolutionary Psychology" that is the religion -- not science.
If you said, "Evolutionary Psychology is ritualized Nuttery, like Economics," then I would be in complete agreement with you.
You may want to read about nursing and the absence of ovulation. You also should follow that up with how long nursing goes on in hunter-gatherer societies.
Not to mention that nursing is a heavy calorie drain. Even if ovulation does occur when a mother is nursing, nursing a year old child is a heavy calorie drain - calories that can contribute to a new male's child instead. There's also the time element - killing another male's child increases the time a female can spend on the male's child.
I don't think you understand the core of evolutionary theory if you think that males who don't kill their rival's children (and thus increase their own child's reproductive success) aren't going to outbreed those who do.
Now that I think about it, this would also support infanticide even committed by females. Imagine a band of hominids. In this band there's a few breeding pairs, as well as males too young to get mates, and females that are currently uncommitted. If the uncommitted female can successfully breed with a "cheating" male already in a breeding pair, that will reduce the time and resources given to that male's breeding partner. Plus there's always the chance of the uncommitted female permanently stealing away the male. But if that female cannot protect her own offspring, the incentive to cheat will be less. So if a female can kill her male partner's children by another female, there's an incentive there.
This is the most obvious explanation, and is so much a common sense that I'm surprised it wasn't "prooved" already since forever.
If it can't be tested, it's not science*.
You mean like evolution (beyond minor intraspecies variations), or all of cosmology and astronomy, or climate theories? The best we can do for any of these is back into a theory based on the scraps of evidence we can gather, and then "test" the theory with computer models, which is not the same thing as testing. We just don't live long enough to observe them on any kind of useful scale, and in many cases, we don't have the means to do any kind of controlled experiment (unless the U.S. government has a top-secret stellar nursery lying around somewhere). That doesn't mean that we should stop trying to understand our universe as best we can. But it does mean that we should take some things we think we know with a grain of salt.
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primates tend to be in bands and they all protect each other. Mogamy happen because it takes a long time to rise the offspring, and it needs the support of both the female and male, and Love was one of the reward mechanism.
See Helen Fisher's talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love.html
Why do you assume all primates are the same socially?
They're not
This is merely another variation on the very old theme of humans needed more co-operation than their ancestors.
"Be sexually faithful or your children die" is a harsh bargain, but such are the stakes in evolutionary biology.
Science works by creating theories (either from educated guesses or observations, often both) and testing them.
If it can't be tested, it's not science*.
Sorry to seem pedantic, but science works by creating hypothesis and testing them, not theories.
Theories need to be supported by a vast body of evidence, and should provide both an explanation and the ability to make falsifiable predictions. They start out as hypothesis, however once experimentation and observation bear out the hypothesis, and sufficient data is accrued to show that all the expected data fits the hypothesis, and that predictions made by the hypothesis continue to be valid, then the framework derived from the hypothesis can be called a theory.
The point being, once something in science is considered a theory, you're long past the creation and testing stages (although there is nothing wrong with continuing to validate new data against existing theories; and obviously once new data is available some theories become either no longer valid, or only valid for certain systems of constraints). What you were talking about above are hypothesis, and the difference is critical to make in this world of vast scientific illiteracy.
Yaz
The headline of horribly stupid because it identifies and ascribes intention and foresight to a process where those qualities are by definition absent. It's the village idiot's view of evolution and is as useful as thinking that the sun decides to rise each morning in order to warm the earth.
Monogamy didn't evolve to do X or Y or to prevent Z. It's one of many traits that allowed its carriers' offspring to endure.
" From a purely genetic standpoint there is no benefit to monogamy for a strong male."
From a genetic standpoint Monogomy is a disadvantage for a strong male. A strong male should be humping everything in sight to spread his genetics far and wide.
That is how it works in nature. A male lion has a pride of females for this exact reason.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well reading TFA criticism was given that human monogamy is primarily socially imposed, and that we are not monogamous on the whole. On the other hand, we can think of some reasons why that might be, the strongest one comes to mind that practicing infanticide amongst humans tends to result in you being removed from the gene donor pool. Perhaps we need monogamy least because we have another mechanism to protect our young? Speculation, of course, they didn't study this.
Killing enemy sires offspring is not at all opposed to the core of evolution, particularly if there is competition for mates. It's why some species have evolved males who are almost useless for practical activities outside of killing each other, ex. the Lion.
Oh, anonymous person on the Internet is such a big tough man. Catch a whiff of that musky manliness. But only a whiff! For should you inhale too deeply, the raw might of their being may overwhelm your soul!
Listen, everyone! You should accept how this person chooses to address YOU. The Cat has obviously shown his superior intellect and grasp of reality. Do not let the display of raw emotion intimidate you. Instead, be in awe of such power unleashed.
This stunning specimen of human perfection deserves... NAY, DEMANDS ... your respect and attention. And you will give it to them. For they are... The Cat.
No sig for you!!
What about all the parents that want to kill their own kids?
What the propaganda's author forgot to take into consideration is the fact that women do not go into estrus or heat. They cyclically ovulate. The whole reason any male animal who is observed to kill another member's of its species offspring is to send the female back into HEAT as a result. This would not be the result for a human, so the premise that the author made for himself to confirm (bias), is flawed on its face. Never mind the methodology!
"Human males and females have a strong tendency to live together in monogamous pairs" [citation needed]
This is how it works in nature - sometimes. The strongest male being the only one that reproduces is not at all the most common reproductive strategy. Even when it does occur, sometimes there are smaller males waiting for the top two to go off and fight so that they have a shot at the females (sea lions).
With birds it makes sense for the male to stick around until the offspring leave the nest. But they still quite often will stick around the next season as well. There's no simplistic evolutionary reason for them to not try and find a different partner next year, or for them to stop breeding altogether if their partner dies.
Trust me when I tell you that there is more Rah, rah, Go Team! than scientific method in origins science. I mean, they just voted to see whether to accept that dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid 65 million years ago. We don't need evidence! We have politics!
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Define "close relative". Do you mean that we look similar? You realize that we are genetically pretty far from orangutans and are actually closer to dogs, pigs and dolphins.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
This seems to be nothing more than a soft science trying to co-opt a hard sciences basis to gain some validity. Monogamy didn't evolve in a biological sense in humans for any reason... we're not monogamous. If we were, there would be no attraction to anyone other than our mate, period; not because we choose to be honorable and respect our mate, but because there would be no attraction... ever.. in any way.
This is some social scientist trying to explain a social quirk of a few of our societies, and has nothing to do with the Theory of Natural Selection, or real science.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Long ago, I was at a good friend's house waiting for him when his wife asked me to help her with some small task that her husband normally would have done. So I did the work, and when I was done she thanked me, saying "The only thing better than having one husband is having two husbands!"
I immediately replied, "The only thing worse than having one wife is having two wives."
Do you need somebody to draw it for you? The artice explains the proposition very clearly. I won't repeat it, so here are the basics: 1) consider infanticide a reality (the paper tries to prove it); 2) suppose there's a male who has genes that make him more caring/social/likely to bond/monogamous, and another one that doesn't; whose offspring/genes are more likely to survive/be carried on?
PS. Evolutionary Theory is largely irrelevant to human evolution since the emergence of culture.
no contradiction here. the article is flame bait, regardless of any poster's political or religious views.
You realize that we are genetically pretty far from orangutans and are actually closer to dogs, pigs and dolphins.
That simply isn't true. We share about 97% of our DNA with Orangutans. Research indicates we split off from a common ancestor roughly 15 million years ago. We are close to dogs, pigs and dolphins, and also to mice genetically, but we're still closer to orangutans. Interestingly, however, research has shown that there may have been some horizontal gene transfer from humans to domestic animals like dogs and pigs by way of viruses.
You do realize that you're full of shit here, right? I'm not entirely sure you realize this because you're not posting as AC.
The other point is that individual families have much less chance of survival than tribes do. Males who overtly indulge in anti-social behaviour are likely to break up the tribe, when they need to bond it together. This may be why sleeping around happens, but tends to happen on the sly, or during 'religious festivals'.
Being a father of 4, I love those whipper snappers like crazy, even when being annoying, noisy, crying, mean. Other people's kids? Little turds can go the hell if they act like that. Shut them up and get the them the F outta my face. Of course I never say that to anyone and have the higher level thinking to take a step back and get some sympathy. But the initial instinct is there, hating other peoples' childrens' antics. Perhaps a latent instinct still at play.
means having one wife too many.
Monogamy means the exact same thing.
And welcome to Slashdot ! Enjoy your visit ...
primates tend to be in bands...
Not always. I know quite a few who are perfectly happy doing session work. There's a lot to be said for having a steady job.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
We can test all of those things. Not all tests are lab experiments. Those are ideal, of course, but not always practical and that doesn't make other things non-scientific.
Evolution and speciation has been shown specifically happening (of course, you can always claim that any variation is "minor" or stretch the definition of "intraspecies") -- http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html. We can also see if archaeological evidence fits into evolutionary theory. If we find a billion year old human fossil on the moon, that would nail evolution (or at least, humans having been the result of evolution -- that or we have time travel, which seems even weirder). What we can't easily test are those "just so" stories, like how ancient human males hunted mammoths while females gathered berries and guarded the cave-nurseries from sabertooth tigers.
Cosmology and astronomy gets very frequent tests because we predict what happens when certain other predicted stellar events occur. Any sufficiently common stellar event in our models that isn't easily predictable within those models (including not predictable because the timescale is too large) should still be observable.
Climate theories are not untested etiehr, though getting very specific is quite difficult. General trends are understood.
And Fundie Christians provide the bulk of cash in the for hire sex-trade in the US. Two sides of a polyhedral die.
My co worker, who studied biology, mentioned another point to consider - the size of the humans skull.
The skull of a newborn is big. It is as big is can get without causing mortal damage to the mother at birth, but, apparently, it is not 'big enough', as it is still growing...
So on the one hand, a human infant needs a lot of protection and care for a long time (as it's brain and skull are still growing), but on the other, the mother is very weak for a substantial time after birth (due to the difficulty of delivering a baby with such a big skull). She could certainly use a helping hand, preferably in the coming years, but certainly in the coming days.
Hell, there exists atleast one specific one that doesn't mate at all and produces only perfect clones of themselves, and still haven't become extinct.
In case you don't know the specific term for this (and how widespread it is): Parthenogenesis.
Hell, there exists atleast one specific one that doesn't mate at all and produces only perfect clones of themselves, and still haven't become extinct.
In case you don't know the specific term for this (and how widespread it is): Parthenogenesis.
Aye, I was looking for the word. Thanks! :)
Again, just because we're not capable of testing them due to our limitations (limited lives, precise and/or massive measurements, etc.) at the moment, does not mean it is impossible to test them (working through several generations, advances in measuring equipment, etc.).
On the other hand, something like "God created the universe." cannot be tested. That belief is necessarily grounded in faith alone.
Indeed, you're absolutely right.
They did a statistic among many primate species. But the conclusion that this applies to humans is propably wrong:
The closest relatives of humans - chimps and bonobos - don't live in monogamous pairs.
Humans share genital features and gender relative body size with bonobos and chimps but not with monogamous primates like gibbons.
And pure hunter gatherer societies that exist know don't live monogamous.
It is very likely that monogamy in humans was triggered by agriculture. It really doesn't make much sense for a population living in small communal groups without property.
http://www.sexatdawn.com/
The research presented in the article might be sound for monogamous primates, but that group of animals does not include humans.
" killing offspring is directly opposed to the core of evolutionary theory,"
Lions are a famous example of killing competing offspring.
Resources are limited, so killing competitors works and is what to do.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
One guy (neckbeard wafting in the breeze from the battery powered fan next to his action figures) thought you were funny.
Your false assumption is that monogamy is a norm and not a recent western civilization cultural abstract idealized contrivance not representing reality, or did I just repeat myself?
"Because you still believe that the earth is 3000 years old and god demanded monogamy."
I don't know anyone that believes the Earth is only 3000 years old, but I know a few who think 6000 to 10000 years
And monogamy is not mentioned in the old testament, many of those people had many wives.
What a load of crock, there is not a single bit of scientific evidence in the form of DNA, fossils or anything else that can even come close to proving evolution exists at all. The whole theory of evolution is of a universe/world/species that are evolving out of control and that through death the fittest survive. That theory alone suggests that extinction for every species would have happened long ago.
God created everything, created Adam and Eve to enjoy marriage just as God created man and woman to only marry one another, once, for life. Thus raise children there in.
Anyone who says evolution is real is clinically insane or scared of the real truth. God created man and thus mans actions have consequences before an almighty God and evolution is a means to filter God out of the picture and try to remove eternal consequences that they have before God.
Not a single mention of the bonobos.. Check out the book "sex at dawn" gets into this on a much deeper level
The title makes it sound like there was some end result that evolution was looking for. Evolution doesn't work that way. If the end result happened to be that there was less infanticide and therefore made it more likely for the species to survive, then that was an evolutionary success. As a result, the monogamous tendency would be more likely be passed on to the next generation. Evolution isn't a conscious entity that said to itself... "hrmm.. how do I reduce infanticide?? I know... let's try monogamy".
I don't know anyone that believes the Earth is only 3000 years old, but I know a few who think 6000 to 10000 years
>
Yes, and those people are going to Hell.
Dark Reflection
She was totally coming on to you.
1. Monogamy reduces the spread of STD's
2. Energy requirements...Have you seen how much energy males of other species put into obtaining and then defending a "harem"? With energy requirements increasing to support evolving gray matter, it would make sense to reduce energy use in other areas.
3. Physical requirements...A male that has a female spends less time fighting other males, and is more likely to be in better physical shape to last long enough to raise young, etc.
4. Education...A male that has a female spends less time fighting, and can focus more time on learning tools, raising/teaching young, etc.
5. Time requirements...Males of other species last at most what, three years defending a "harem"? A one to three year "peak" does not seem to line up with where humans ended up.
I agree that monogamy in theory would reduce pressure on offspring by competing males. But I think some combination of other things such as those above may be more important.
People getting real butthurt over nothing.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
That's not shit. That's PR ;)
...you kill my kid and my wife and I fucking kill you slowly and painfully. Albeit, both parties still lose.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Nothing about this is said in the Bible, the only science manual you need.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Female cats, and female dogs (generally those that have not had a litter of their own), will often kill others' offspring.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"You may want to read about nursing and the absence of ovulation."
Its just a myth thar women who are nursing don't get pregnant. I have seen quite a lot of pregnant nurses.
Science is a fucking religion.
No, Science is not a religion.
The way we do science, however, can be uncomfortably close to religion, with its own dogma, preachers and heathens that get in the way of the job at hand.
We all know Max Planck's rather wry quote that Science advances one funeral at a time. That isn't how Science was meant to work. As such I can certainly understand your frustration.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Is that why I'm in this handbasket??????
I'm not trying to incite a God vs. Science battle. I accept both, so I have no dog in the fight. And the fact that we could possibly test cosmological models with godlike powers and immortality does not contribute anything to our current scientific understanding. One could just as easily say, "I can prove that God exists by standing in His presence." Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't investigate evolution or cosmology. My point is that we should avoid the type of hubris that leads some fundamentalist Christians to believe the value of pi is exactly three because the Bible describes a city wall as having a diameter of ten cubits and a circumference of thirty cubits, therefore God has decreed the exact value of pi. Instead, let's be realistic about what we do and do not know and not pretend that some god of science has decreed the absolute truth of our current evolutionary model from the top of a mountain.
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Your example of the lions seems to be counter to what you wanted to show. If the male lion leaves the pride a new lions will take over his spot and kill off all his offspring. That is not too good for the strong males genes.
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