6 ms·

Although this is... well... close enough to true, it is not a sufficient explainer as the animals who behave in the manner you describe account for only a very

by jMyles 11y ago

Although this is... well... close enough to true, it is not a sufficient explainer as the animals who behave in the manner you describe account for only a very small number of species. Most species have sex extremely conservatively, and very few are capable of the frequency and duration of sex that humans engage in. But why can we observe same-sex pair bonding and sexual contact so frequently, even in species that don't seem particularly sexually obsessed?

acqq 11y ago
> Most species have sex extremely conservatively That's what my ex-girlfriend claimed, because she never actually observed animals behaving, "the animals are so peaceful." Then as she was in the park, she was witness of, named with the human-related names, a violent prolonged gang-rape of one female duck by the group of male ducks. The female duck was wounded, repeatedly and observably. My girlfriend was deeply shocked. By the way, a male duck has a 20-cm corkscrew-shaped penis and he can pull it out in a third of a second: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU And penises of cats are barbed, evolved and now necessary to make pain to females: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A
- openasocket 11y ago
  Ducks are notorious for having very aggressive sex. There are plenty of species which are well documented to have monogamous, long-term sexual relationships. Off the top of my head, seabirds have monogamous sexual behaviors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior
  - acqq 11y ago
    > There are plenty of species How much in percents is that "plenty"? It's easy to toss qualifications, it's much harder to reasonably quantify what we research. I don't agree it's "plenty of species" (Edit: of course, in a sense that it's useful for a discussion argument, as in "majority", certainly not in a sense "an example can't be found" of course it can).
    - Retric 11y ago
      0.01% would be plenty in this context. Remember this is not a popularity contest and there are a lot of species out there. Why does behavior X happen is not asking what happens the other 99.99% of the time.
      - acqq 11y ago
        > 0.01% would be plenty in this context. Why? What is being proved, unless we talk about majority? So we are able to find some animals that are monogamous and not violent? What then? Like in the article, tossing "plenty" and "many" actually doesn't help for anything more than creating illusion that the behavior we like is somehow "supported" by nature. It's not problem analyzing some behavior, the problem is unsupported "plenty" and "many."
        Retric 11y ago
        There is a biological basis for X behavior in several species. This is plenty to start looking for similarity’s and root causes. Think of it in these terms, if one species of poisonous animal is brightly colored that says little. If several are brightly colored that's more significant. Edit: In math you only need one counter example to disprove a theory. In science a few is generally enough.
        tedks 11y ago
        Saying N% of species engaged in a behavior would be a meaningless statement. There are probably a few billion (real, not discovered) insect species. We will probably never discover and catalog them all genetically unless we invent nanotech before the big extinction. Insects are not relevant to this discussion; neither are mollusks, or really dumb fish, or worms, etc.. So scoping this to "a plurality of species that have some intelligence" is somewhat appropriate. That said, this whole thread is nothing but people trying to anthropomorphize nature, so that they can pretend it's more cuddly than it actually is. There is no chemical for morality secreted by all species. There is no evolution for empathy. These are things humans create through their own intelligence, and no amount of anthropomorophized behavior will make that not the case.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  Its easy to cherrypick examples, but at least in the mammal world being in heat for a limited time makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Humans are notorious for being horny all the time and really are an exception. Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. There's this historic recontexualizing of animals as being "just like us." I think that's just wrong and it leads to bad outcomes. Its only recently that we've been able to acknowledge the intelligence of octopus or crows because we were so focused on animals 'like us' which were primarily mammals. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to say an octopus is smarter than a dog in polite company. You would have sounded like a crazy person. I suspect these views aren't academic but actually political. The "animals are just like us" seems to be 60's counterculture vegitariansism and the "animals fuck all the time and are gay" seems to stem from the gay rights movement to validate their position as "natural," whatever that means. In fact, I read a book about this in the 90s and the thesis was just that. It was a fairly popular book. Your penis design doesn't really help your argument. A hard to remove penis means a higher chance of pregnancy. Humans don't have this probably because we have sex so often, but for animals with a short heat period its very important to fertilize those eggs on the first try. Also, animals are not as lingual or culturally complex like humans so the barb is how the male controls the female. In human society we do this too via cultural baggage, male domination, marriage norms, dating norms, one-sided social pressure, and sometimes the outright threat of violence or rape. So the idea that penis barbs are these awful things is questionable compared to the alternatives. Lastly, one of the big issues with repairing the damage of human encroachment into wildlife areas is that we can't just get animal populations back up easily. They're not used to smaller mating populations, less territory, less younger and more viable mates, etc and their sexual habits reflect that. Pandas are an extreme example, but this issue happens with most animals. They can't just magically become as promiscuous as humans. It would be nice if they could, but its just not in the cards and that's going to lead to issues like extinction down the line for many of today's endangered species and already has happened for so many more.
  - acqq 11y ago
    > Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. Please name percentage that supports your "typically" claim. It depends what you want to count. If we count our closest relatives, they are bonobos and chimps. Bonobos: http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-with-everyone-are-awesome-may-hold-key-to-our-past-59956 http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-... "Bonobos Have Lots of Sex, Are Awesome, May Hold Key to Our Past" Chimps: http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/behav http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/beha... "The majority of chimpanzee reproductive behavior is promiscuous, with females mating with multiple males opportunistically during estrus, though the majority of copulation occurs during the 10-day period of maximal tumescence (Goodall 1986)." The observations of Goodall were disputed by some stupid male "scientist" who claimed that she "projects her values to chimpanzees." But she observed the behavior in the nature, documented it and published. He was the one who "projected." 100% of our closest relatives are provably promiscuous. And some of them do copulate with the same sex too.
Sven7 11y ago
Well...the conservative nature is mostly cause they haven't discovered the internet yet. Zuckerberg is working on it with drones over the Serengeti and such.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by jMyles 11y ago

acqq 11y ago

> Most species have sex extremely conservatively That's what my ex-girlfriend claimed, because she never actually observed animals behaving, "the animals are so peaceful." Then as she was in the park, she was witness of, named with the human-related names, a violent prolonged gang-rape of one female duck by the group of male ducks. The female duck was wounded, repeatedly and observably. My girlfriend was deeply shocked. By the way, a male duck has a 20-cm corkscrew-shaped penis and he can pull it out in a third of a second: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjEeI2SmiU And penises of cats are barbed, evolved and now necessary to make pain to females: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVw7cgv36A

openasocket 11y ago
Ducks are notorious for having very aggressive sex. There are plenty of species which are well documented to have monogamous, long-term sexual relationships. Off the top of my head, seabirds have monogamous sexual behaviors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabird_breeding_behavior
- acqq 11y ago
  > There are plenty of species How much in percents is that "plenty"? It's easy to toss qualifications, it's much harder to reasonably quantify what we research. I don't agree it's "plenty of species" (Edit: of course, in a sense that it's useful for a discussion argument, as in "majority", certainly not in a sense "an example can't be found" of course it can).
  - Retric 11y ago
    0.01% would be plenty in this context. Remember this is not a popularity contest and there are a lot of species out there. Why does behavior X happen is not asking what happens the other 99.99% of the time.
    - acqq 11y ago
      > 0.01% would be plenty in this context. Why? What is being proved, unless we talk about majority? So we are able to find some animals that are monogamous and not violent? What then? Like in the article, tossing "plenty" and "many" actually doesn't help for anything more than creating illusion that the behavior we like is somehow "supported" by nature. It's not problem analyzing some behavior, the problem is unsupported "plenty" and "many."
      - Retric 11y ago
        There is a biological basis for X behavior in several species. This is plenty to start looking for similarity’s and root causes. Think of it in these terms, if one species of poisonous animal is brightly colored that says little. If several are brightly colored that's more significant. Edit: In math you only need one counter example to disprove a theory. In science a few is generally enough.
      - tedks 11y ago
        Saying N% of species engaged in a behavior would be a meaningless statement. There are probably a few billion (real, not discovered) insect species. We will probably never discover and catalog them all genetically unless we invent nanotech before the big extinction. Insects are not relevant to this discussion; neither are mollusks, or really dumb fish, or worms, etc.. So scoping this to "a plurality of species that have some intelligence" is somewhat appropriate. That said, this whole thread is nothing but people trying to anthropomorphize nature, so that they can pretend it's more cuddly than it actually is. There is no chemical for morality secreted by all species. There is no evolution for empathy. These are things humans create through their own intelligence, and no amount of anthropomorophized behavior will make that not the case.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
Its easy to cherrypick examples, but at least in the mammal world being in heat for a limited time makes a lot of evolutionary sense. Humans are notorious for being horny all the time and really are an exception. Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. There's this historic recontexualizing of animals as being "just like us." I think that's just wrong and it leads to bad outcomes. Its only recently that we've been able to acknowledge the intelligence of octopus or crows because we were so focused on animals 'like us' which were primarily mammals. Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable to say an octopus is smarter than a dog in polite company. You would have sounded like a crazy person. I suspect these views aren't academic but actually political. The "animals are just like us" seems to be 60's counterculture vegitariansism and the "animals fuck all the time and are gay" seems to stem from the gay rights movement to validate their position as "natural," whatever that means. In fact, I read a book about this in the 90s and the thesis was just that. It was a fairly popular book. Your penis design doesn't really help your argument. A hard to remove penis means a higher chance of pregnancy. Humans don't have this probably because we have sex so often, but for animals with a short heat period its very important to fertilize those eggs on the first try. Also, animals are not as lingual or culturally complex like humans so the barb is how the male controls the female. In human society we do this too via cultural baggage, male domination, marriage norms, dating norms, one-sided social pressure, and sometimes the outright threat of violence or rape. So the idea that penis barbs are these awful things is questionable compared to the alternatives. Lastly, one of the big issues with repairing the damage of human encroachment into wildlife areas is that we can't just get animal populations back up easily. They're not used to smaller mating populations, less territory, less younger and more viable mates, etc and their sexual habits reflect that. Pandas are an extreme example, but this issue happens with most animals. They can't just magically become as promiscuous as humans. It would be nice if they could, but its just not in the cards and that's going to lead to issues like extinction down the line for many of today's endangered species and already has happened for so many more.
- acqq 11y ago
  > Animals, in general, aren't at all like us. The GP is correct, sex in the animal world is typically conservative. Please name percentage that supports your "typically" claim. It depends what you want to count. If we count our closest relatives, they are bonobos and chimps. Bonobos: http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-with-everyone-are-awesome-may-hold-key-to-our-past-59956 http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/bonobos-have-sex-... "Bonobos Have Lots of Sex, Are Awesome, May Hold Key to Our Past" Chimps: http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/behav http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/chimpanzee/beha... "The majority of chimpanzee reproductive behavior is promiscuous, with females mating with multiple males opportunistically during estrus, though the majority of copulation occurs during the 10-day period of maximal tumescence (Goodall 1986)." The observations of Goodall were disputed by some stupid male "scientist" who claimed that she "projects her values to chimpanzees." But she observed the behavior in the nature, documented it and published. He was the one who "projected." 100% of our closest relatives are provably promiscuous. And some of them do copulate with the same sex too.

Sven7 11y ago

Well...the conservative nature is mostly cause they haven't discovered the internet yet. Zuckerberg is working on it with drones over the Serengeti and such.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]