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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."
Clearly you didn't read the article. The very study linked in the summary specifically compared 230 primate species, some of which are socially monogamous and some of which are not. And it explains why it *hasn't* evolved among all of the fairly similar species in the study using a model based on the infanticide rate.
There are almost certainly things to be picked apart in the study, but you need to understand the basic premise before you can start on that track.
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.
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.
That's not what they said about Welfare Queens.
No, it did not say that other species practiced infanticide. It said that infanticide was much more detrimental to us (and what had evolved into us) due to the extended period of helplessness during infancy. Infanticide was much too expensive for us than it is for lions and such.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Humans, on the other hand, can have babies about once a year.
Women who nurse exclusively on average do not get their periods for 14-15 months after childbirth. Some get it right away, some go 2-3 years, but 13-16 months is the average, if they are nursing.
Pedophilia is a sexual interest in prepubescent children, as in they can not possibly get pregnant. You are talking about something very different.