Rape and evolution

In another thread, Crashfrog is discussing rape with a few members of EvC. His discussion prompted me to think about the sociology of rape and how it would apply in an evolutionary sense.Crashfrog writes: I agree with his sentiments that even "good guys" are capable of heinous crimes against humanity. But I have another question, which is what prompted to split the topic.I've heard some evolutionists attempt to exonerate rape because they see it as a natural part of biology. Now, if we can separate ourselves for a moment from our emotive response for how we view rape, strictly speaking, they are possibly right if evolution is true-- and even more so if there is no actual purpose to life.When you look at the animal kingdom, but especially in mammalia, you will notice that sex is not a very desirable thing. Lets look at cats for a moment, since my un-neutered cat is trying to molest the other cats in the house. The male bites at the neck, forcibly pinning the female while he does his thing. (I'm sure I don't need to go into great detail about cat sex).The female never seems thrilled about his sexual conquest. In fact, when you hear yowls and growls coming from the female, those aren't moans of pleasure. She's in pain, and probably because the male has a barb on the tip of its penis that some would say evolved in order to anchor the penis securely inside the vagina to aid in the insemination process.Now, when we look at most mammals, this seems to be the case-- an almost violent altercation. Its a very impersonal, biological urge to procreate that is particularly not fun for the female.Since people like to point out common ancestry, how do these biological urges play out in an evolutionary sense for humans? Could someone make the argument that males are merely victims of their hormones and are acting in the very way nature has cued them to be, or are humans more "evolved" than their animal counterparts? I realize that some people object to evolution in the sense of it having a general direction from least to greatest, or from less to more, but surely on some level we recognize that there is something vastly different about humans.Can an evolutionist make moral pronouncements, such as "rape is bad," while still clinging to his or her beliefs in evolution? Does it leave them in an indefensible position or can any of you reconcile this?

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"With derision the atheist points out that there can be no God because this world is so unfair. Without hesitation, I concur with him. Indeed, we live in an unfair world because of all sorts of social ills and perils. I must not contend with such a sentiment because it is factual-- we don't live in a fair world. Grace is unambiguous proof that we live in an unfair world. I received salvation when I deserved condemnation. Yes, indeed this world is unfair." -Andrew Jaramillo-

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Who is clinging and silly question. This basically the old tired saw about "how can evilutionist have morals".Just for fun let's turn the question around.So if rape is the natural state of creation and the creator or Intelligent Designer, designed special equipment to facilitate rape as in the example you provided about cats, what does that say about the designer?Also if the god as described in the OT even commanded the rape of captive virgin girls what does that say about the god of the OT. And if the god of the OT considered rape only a civil legal affair (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) what does that say.Can a fundamentalist Christian make moral pronouncements, such as "rape is bad," while still clinging to his or her beliefs in the Bible? Does it leave them in an indefensible position or can any of you reconcile this?Edited by iceage, : No reason given.Edited by iceage, : spelling and bold

Yes we could make that argument. Likewise the rest of us seek to protect ourselves from such things by imposing punishments on those that do things we collectively don't want to happen to us/close ones.There is an evolutionary explanation for why people do bad things, just as there is one for why people don't. But being social animals with the ability to communicate over many many generations means we have a lot of cultural baggage which plays a much bigger role than our genetics. Rape is not objectively bad, or evil. However, it is undesirable and we pursue and punish those that commit such acts. Its very easy to understand that social animals have a system like this - other animals do likewise. We add culture on top if it, and it becomes straightforward to see that a cultured social animal doesn't need an objective sense of right and wrong to ascribe 'bad' or 'good' to something.

Quote them. Of course. Just as I can believe that killing people is bad while, ahem, "clinging to my beliefs" in gravity.

Morality and biology are almost completely nonrelated. Simply put, morality is how we as humans try to define appropriate behaviors and inappropriate behaviors to stabilize society and hopefully make life more comfortable for people. Biology is simply a field of science that studies interactions between organic beings and describes how these interactions come about. I don't know if this is the official definition or not and I don't care. It just came off the top of my head.The point is evolution is simply a description of what we observe and what seems to be the case in nature. Frankly, I don't understand how one can draw any correlation between morality and something like evolution. Just doesn't work.PS - I don't pretend to understand completely what evolution is all about. In other words, I really don't see myself as a true evolutionist.

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Heh. You like walking on the edge, don't you, nem?A few points. First, we don't know that there is an innate drive in human males toward rape. Personally, I suspect that there isn't, although these things are hard to determine.Second, if there is an innate biological drive in human males toward rape, there is no reason to accept that it was directly selected because it provided some sort of reproductive benefit to those who had the trait. It may be the result of other aspects of human neurology that were directly selected for.Third, even if a biological tendency toward rape were selected for because it provided a reproductive benefit in our ancestors, it may, like the modern human appendix, serve little or no purpose in modern humans. Since, like all human drives, it is rather weak and flexible, it is possible that it has been selected against in recent human evolutionary history.Finally, even if modern human males have an inherited tendency toward rape because it has given our recent ancestors a reproductive benefit, there is no moral conclusion we can draw from it. Just like the law of gravity requires things to fall down, there is nothing morally superior to keeping to the valleys and nothing immoral about flying in airplanes or living on hilltops. Likewise, if modern human males have an inherited tendency toward rape because it has given our recent ancestors a survival benefit, then this is merely a description about human behavior and the reason a certain behavior persists, not a moral imperative.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Haven't you heard the saying good girls like bad guys? Just go ask any high school girl out there whether she prefers the guy that pressures her for sex or the guy that respects her. More often than not, the baddest of the badasses and jerks out there seem to get a lot more girls than the nice guys.

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Hi, iceage.

quote:

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This basically the old tired saw about "how can evilutionist have morals".

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Actually, it's not; it's a very different argument.Remember how it used to be a sit-com staple, that the philandering husband would try to justify his philandering on the evolutionary drive to "spread his genes"? Well, in real life, actual evolutionists have tried to justify things like imperialism, racism, and the like with arguments based on evolutionary theory. Social Darwinism was, after all, advocated by people who accepted evolution. This is all based on a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution, of course, but it isn't just creationists who have used these types of arguments in their attempts to discredit evolution.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Should be an interesting thread, NJ. Thank you. I don't think you're largely wrong about most of the mammal world, but primates, including humans, have to be understood to be the exception, here, for a number of reasons.Primate females have clitorises, for instance, and experience the same pleasurable sensation of orgasm that males do, which they can achieve at any time, even during their non-fertile period. Primates are the only mammals that do not experience estrous*; rather, primates ovulate cryptically (that is, without obvious physical indications, even to the female herself) and are receptive to physical intercourse at any time. (At least, they are with me. Hot-cha-cha!)The long and the short of all of this - the cryptic ovulation, the capacity for the female orgasm, even the fact that it's pretty hard for primates to actually concieve during intercourse (less than 1 in 500 penetrative acts between fertile individuals will result in a conception) - is that, clearly, sex among the primate species does not have the primary purpose of reproduction, but rather, causing pleasure and promoting pair-bonding behaviors.Therefore, since the purpose of sex in primates is not reproduction but rather fostering social unity, rape as a behavior works against the rapist and costs him far more in the loss of social resources than he gains in terms of producing more offspring. After all, the rapist has absolutely no idea when the woman is actually fertile. He's literally taking a shot in the dark, if you will. (Not to make light of the tragedy of rape, of course.)*In fact, while you're right that your housecat probably doesn't derive pleasure from mating, estrous is a good reason to conclude that what's going on isn't really rape. In most species, males show no interest in mating behaviors until a nearby female undergoes the hormonal signaling changes of estrous, at which point, they approach the female and try to achieve sexual access. Even in these species, clearly the female wields considerable control over whether or not mating occurs, so to describe what's going on as "rape" doesn't seem appropriate.

Yeah, but it's not because women want guys who treat them like shit; it's because bad guys have a lot of techniques for manipulating women.

Which shows that guys who have more tendencies to manipulate and sometimes even rape aren't being selected against anytime soon.

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Why? Is there statistical evidence that these people are producing more children or that more of their children are surviving to adulthood than other people? That is, after all, the very meaning of "natural selection".Edited by Chiroptera, : sounded too much like a personal challenge

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

I think it is important to note that the act of rape is an act of agression and humiliation. The primary driver for the behaviour is not procreation.Evolution has nothing to do with it aside from the human drive to exhert control over its environment (the social environment).As Crash points out, this is counter to modern social norms and behaviours and ultimately costs the rapist as our culture will (hopefully) eventualy catch and sanction this behaviour.I see no reason to bring evolution into a subject that is more correctly the province of psycholgy/sociology.

Nature has certainly distributed the tasks for men and women in reproduction in uneven ways. The numbers have held constant through millennia of human history. This will have an inevitable effect on how individuals gauge their investments and risks in sexual behavior.Everyone knows the numbers.

All persons are the product of sexual coupling.
Distribution of gender among genetic parents: 50% men, 50% women.

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All persons are the results of pregnancies.
Distribution of gender among those having pregnancies: 0% men, 100% women.

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Percentage of sexually active women who can be absolutely sure of their parentage of a given newborn: 100%

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Percentage of sexually active men who can be absolutely sure of their parentage of a given newborn: 0%

Womb space for the reproductive process is relatively rare, too, while sperm for the process is relatively plentiful.

On an island populated by one man and 100 women, number of infants that can be born in a year: 100

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On an island populated by 100 men and one woman, number of infants that can be born in a year: 1

These longstanding numbers exercise their influence on any sexual phenomenon we want to consider: fidelity and infidelity, courtship rituals, monogomy and polygamy, sexual aggression, sitcom moms and dads.We have begun to see the equations fundamentally altered, of course, in our own day. We live in interesting times.___

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ArcherAll species are transitional.