The evolution of size matters

I think the accuracy would be open to question whenever the drawing was done.

Would not this imply that women are incredibly stupid and think strictly with their genitals? Surely at least one or two women might notice that Caveman "5 cm" is taller, stronger, and more able to bring home more meat to the cave than Caveman J. Holmes.

It seems you did say exactly that. Yeah the OP does include other factors, but then you did not write the OP, did you? Pretty unequivocable statement there.

How sure are we that penis size is fully inheritable. Perhaps the difference between a tiny one, and a functional one is subject to natural selection. But is there any evidence that the difference between a functional one, and a Johnny Wadd monster is passed on to offspring rather than being subject to non-genetic factors. I don't know enough biology to accurately list the possibilities, but perhaps something during embyo development or epignetics factors.

Forced copulations are not the only possibility. There are other situations where women have minimal choice about their mates physical attractiveness. How about arranged marriages as another possibility? How about societies were families are glad to marry then off their daughters for doweries.

I know even less about it than you do. Which makes it hard for me to take serious speculation about natural selection or sexual selection driving penis size. Even if women select bigger penises, we have no idea if the result will be offspring with the same characteristics.

That's exactly what I said, Jon. We don't know if penis size is heritable to the extent needed to justify much speculation. I don't think there is any problem believing that they evolved to be easily functional, but is there any evidence at all that 'attractive' size penises are inheritable, or even that the frequency of such penises has increased all in the last 50k years? How much change is attributable to non-genetic factors like health and diet.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I think you are neglecting a bit of biology. There is more to making a baby than just releasing sperm. For example, merely applying sperm 'topically' lowers the chance for success. For some definition of half-assed, yes.I'm not arguing about preference. I'm assuming that larger is preferable to women than smaller. At least we have some evidence for that. What I'm casting doubt is whether larger than 'average' is inheritable.

We have insufficient information regarding increases in average size over time for humans. What do you think was the average length of a penis 50,000 years ago? Why do you think that?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

My question doesn't matter, but yours is all important, eh?Your question, as I understand it is whether in the evolution from ape to man, the 'attractive penis' evolved prior to other (surely more important) characteristics that separate man from his non human ancestors 1,000,000 or so years ago. And that's based solely on knowing that other modern apes have unattractive (read as tiny) penises. Well it turns out that none of the apes leading up to modern man survives and we don't know the sizes of any of their willies. Boners are not actually skeletal.In short you are asking me whether the penises of homo something (not sure what, but something existing in the > 50,000 year ago range) are on average, longer than those of modern man.Well I owe you an answer other 'it does not matter', so my answer is I have no idea, and you don't either. And even if we did, we'd still not know whether the difference is genetically based.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Again, you don't have any track record of penis size, and you don't know if genetic factors are more important than non-genetic ones in determining penis size, and you cannot even establish any track record of women selecting their mates over any substantial period of time. You cannot even present corelation, let alone evidence of causation.Until you have some evidence to hang your arguments from, you may just as well be doing Creation Science.I'm not saying that your sexual selection proposal is not workable, only that it is unevidenced and that it is not the only possibility.

These are not the only options Jon. As has been discussed, and supported with references, penis size is not affected solely by genetics, and thus any explanation need not solely involve genetics.