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Author Topic:   Nipples
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 15 of 64 (503565)
03-20-2009 8:48 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by rueh
03-19-2009 3:36 PM


Re: something about "in His image"
quote:
Why did god give all the mammels nipples?
Monotremes don't have nipples, the milk just comes out through pores in the skin.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by rueh, posted 03-19-2009 3:36 PM rueh has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 35 of 64 (504210)
03-25-2009 9:34 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by Perdition
03-23-2009 4:57 PM


Evolution didn't push us towards monogamy, reason did. Evolution just pushed us toward reason.
How did reason push us towards monogamy? I don't see anything inherently more rational about it; and there are and have been plenty of non-monogamous cultures around the place.
There are biological reasons pushing towards monogamy. From a male point of view, you need to know a child is really yours if you're going to invest any time in raising it after doing your bit at conception; otherwise it's wasted effort from the point of view of reproductive success. Men who are jealous with their partners, and effective at ensuring they sleep with no-one else, have a selective advantage. As for women, keeping your man focused on you alone, and making him believe that he's the only man for you, increases the chances that he will consider your (and only your) offspring his own and help you invest in their success.
Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

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 Message 28 by Perdition, posted 03-23-2009 4:57 PM Perdition has replied

Replies to this message:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 37 of 64 (504297)
03-26-2009 2:15 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by Perdition
03-26-2009 1:17 PM


quote:
I think the fact that we need laws to stop men from creating a harem of women, or a polygamous marriage, is indicative that the evolutionary push for monogamy has not fully taken hold in men, at the very least.
Well, evolutionary considerations don't only drive towards monogamy. You can guard your mate to ensure the parenthood of the children you invest in; whilst at the same time spreading your oats far and wide; you put serious investment into a few children you know are yours while putting a tiny investment (a quick shag) into potential scores of other offspring. This could be an evolutionary basis for patriarchal cultures where infidelity is tolerated in men and condemned in women.
As for harems; if you've got the resources to invest in lots of children and the power to keep control over a lot of women; then the same arguments I mentioned above for monogamy would lead to success for men with big harems.

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 Message 36 by Perdition, posted 03-26-2009 1:17 PM Perdition has replied

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 50 of 64 (504583)
03-31-2009 9:51 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by Peg
03-30-2009 2:22 AM


quote:
The instinct to care for offspring is very strong amongst all animals...except for humans who readily will kill their offspring ie abortion. Or they will neglect them and not care for them properly.
Nonsense. The instinct to care for offspring is completely absent in many animals. A turtle will lay her eggs on the beach, and then set off to sea with no concern for the little ones left to hatch and struggle alone. Seahorse mothers dispatch their eggs, then bugger off and take no more part in parenthood - the father will fertilise the eggs, then once he's released the tiny little fry completely ignores them. I've watched my catfish eat their own eggs after laying - presumably this would be less of a problem in the wild as they wouldn't be in such a confined space. Most animals take no part in their offspring's lives once they've been born (many take no further part following fertilisation) - parental care is the exception, not the norm.
Even amongst animals that do care for their young, it's not that rare for them to kill their own babies. Many rodents eat their young in times of stress or overpopulation. Here's an article all about infanticide in brown rats, which discusses mother rates eating their own deformed young, or their entire litters in times of stress or malnutrition. Mother kangaroos have been observed to leave young to die in times of food scarcity, including removing young from their pouch that are not capableof surviving alone. Blue-footed boobies freely allow their stronger chicks to throw the weaker out of the nest, then abandon the losing chick to starve.
And in what sense do humans not instinctively protect their young just as much as some of our animal relatives? Most people will fight tooth and nail to protect their children, sometimes at the expense of their own lives. If they sometimes also kill or neglect them, this separates them not at all from the behaviour of other animals.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 59 of 64 (512976)
06-23-2009 3:31 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Hyroglyphx
06-07-2009 8:58 AM


Re: Why men have nipples
quote:
The reason men have nipples is because mammals in utero, during the first gestational phase, are all female. Females are XX chromosomes. Part of the X's allele is deleted which crudely looks like the Roman alphabet "Y," giving it now an XY (male).
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding completely here, but are you saying that your father's Y chromosone produces an X-chromosone which is then turned back into a Y after the first gestational phase?
I've been unable to find out if this is true, but I remember reading somewhere that all human embryos begin to develop vans deferens. If it is, then I don't think it makes sense to describe early embryos as females - they're undifferentiated.

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