Posted on 10/30/2007 6:30:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Roger HighfieldThe reason that women outlive men by an average of around five years is due to sex, harems and violence in the Stone Age, according to a study published today... our prehistoric male ancestors kept female harems and fought over them to procreate: because male life was nasty, brutish and short, evolutionary forces focused on making males big and strong, rather than long lived... What they find is that the difference in life span between males and females in creatures such as red deer, prairie dogs, lions, baboons, geese, mongooses, wild dogs, beavers and others grows in direct proportion to the degree to which an animal's society is polygynous. that is a society where one male enjoys the attentions of several female breeding partners... In animal societies where males protect harems from the attention of their rivals until they are toppled, the males age faster and have shorter life spans... "This effect applies quite generally," said Prof Clutton Brock. "If you look at royalty, you find that kings do not live as long as queens."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I will add that I do not believe that life could have gained the astounding organization and intelligence that it has, even through enormous amounts of geologic time, without the input of an outside intelligence and force.
If you are going to contribute to science you need to leave belief behind, and bring evidence to the argument.
According to this article, I’m a DEAD MAN WALKING! ! !
I’ve spent most of my money on Wine, Women and Song! The rest I just wasted!
Luckily I live in the U.S. where freedom of speech is guaranteed but the evidence lies in the known physiology of men and women. Having spent a career as a professional biologist, it was simply my belief that I could add something to this discussion on biology. However, if I'm to leave my beliefs behind, maybe not.
But if it's evidence of the God I mentioned as an aside, I cannot offer you that evidence. I couldn't accomplish that trick even if you were Billy Graham and, if you are attacking my beliefs as I think you are, I'm fairly sure you're not the evangelist. :)
Freedom of speech does not apply to the sciences. There you must bring evidence. That evidence is weighed and evaluated, and sometimes discarded.
...but the evidence lies in the known physiology of men and women. Having spent a career as a professional biologist, it was simply my belief that I could add something to this discussion on biology. However, if I'm to leave my beliefs behind, maybe not.
But what you added was not biology, but religious belief.
Intelligent design is clearly creation "science" recycled after the Edwards decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Intelligent design was subsequently determined to be religious in nature after a lengthy U.S. Federal District Court trial (Kitzmiller).
Would that you had stuck to biology.
To my knowledge and experience, I don't believe scientific peer review even supplants the 1st Amendment. I could be wrong however. We're living in strange days.
>>Would that you had stuck to biology.<<
One can never divorce their beliefs from their work especially in the biological world. If you think that beliefs can be separated, you have never sat in front of a room full of folded-arm Sierra Club and SW Center for Bio Diversity enviros defending biological positions. Here we almost always find that evidence cannot resolve the questions at hand not because the parties have differing educations, or even evidence, but that they have different convictions. How then are the problems resolved? A fellow with a law degree, e.g., your Edwards Decision.
So as a biologist forgive me if I interject my convictions and beliefs into my discussions of science or of any subject. Rest assured that I am not jaded when it comes to listening to those who have a different belief. I just ask that they give me the same respect and recognize that beliefs have much influence over the way we see evidence.
I apologize but I must close this interesting discussion for now but us old guys need our rest. Also I have brakes to install on one of my tractors tomorrow and I need to be rested for the job. Take care and thanks for the replies.
that’s why I’m so shot out at 50.
worth every bit of it.....just wish I could been shot out sooner
i musta been slow
“..you find that kings do not live as long as queens.”
Obviously never was in Greenwich Village or San Francisco.
I kinda thought that he had one of those fop-like hyphenated English last names, but wasn’t sure, so I just said, “the professor”. :’)
Bingo.
:’) I wonder how the stone age women kept their hair from falling out.
Sorry. Mammoth?
[rimshot!] (so to speak)
:’)
I wish I had her body and she had a stick up her bum. ;)
Things do not just develop because they are good in evolution, they survive because they aren’t sufficiently bad.
It is most likely that certain traits come into being for no particular reason and continue if they are good or not sufficiently bad.
Take a sabre tooth cat for instance. Assuming that their canines did not suddenly grow six inches, but grew gradually, there is absolutely no competitive advantage to having teeth that are 1/2 mm longer. Therefore, it is far more likely that the a genetic code change created ever growing teeth. That the cat found advantage to this was adaptation, and may have reinforced the evolution. When the teeth became too long, the trait was sufficiently negative enough to cause a change in the gene pool.
Taking post-reproductive women as the specific example. It is the height of creative silliness to think that women evolved to be unreproductive caretakers. Any creative person could easily generate a half-dozen alternative theories explaining why it developed. In fact, it is simply wishful thinking to crudely elevate any positive feature to the role of prime selector.
Why do human females cease to reproduce in the middle of their lives? We don’t know. All we know is that they do, and that the result is not so negative as to eliminate the species.
Your logic applied to the average workplace would make lazy, unproductive workers essential, based on the undeniable fact that they are there. Thus, whatever they do provide must be a positive. In truth, as long as they aren't sufficiently bad, they will likely remain. Although evolution might provide a better worker, it will not eliminate the old one unless that worker is sufficiently bad.
“Taking post-reproductive women as the specific example. It is the height of creative silliness to think that women evolved to be unreproductive caretakers. Any creative person could easily generate a half-dozen alternative theories explaining why it developed. In fact, it is simply wishful thinking to crudely elevate any positive feature to the role of prime selector.
“Why do human females cease to reproduce in the middle of their lives? We don’t know. All we know is that they do, and that the result is not so negative as to eliminate the species.”
You and some other poster here are ASSUMING women (and men) lived PAST women’s typical “child-bearing years” in the STONE AGE. Typically way back then in pre-history, the age of death was just 40 or so.
Your points about women being useless when they stop reproducing is specious because as far as anyone in the Stone Age was concerned, there was no such thing as an “old woman” who could not have a baby.
I’ll add that there are other females of the species who live a bit beyond their reproductive years.
And let’s bear in mind before making it seem that men are all superior for “reproductive usefullness” - women bear a huge burden compared to men. All they have to do is shoot out some bit of liquid in 5 seconds. Women have to gain weight and bulkiness, have their hormones screw up their bodies’ normal functions, and so on for months on end. It’s MUCH easier to continue spitting out some liquid forever than to do all the latter into “old age” (which didn’t exist in the Stone Age).
I never assumed any such thing. In fact, you just put your finger on the far more likely explanation, i.e. that women must be strong and healthy to bear children and thus when they stop ovulating they remain strong enough to live for many/many years. However, it is still just a likely explanation.
But as I know of no other organism that ceases reproduction long before natural death, this becomes the central question.
Your assumption is that average age at death is significant, but is it? Stone age cultures often have people live well past 60. Although some euthanize, most don't. It also assumes that what we know of stone-age culture now has any semblance to when the trait first appeared.
My point is that evolutionary scientists far too often go off on flights of fancy, likely from pressure to publish, reaching conclusions that are anything but definitive. Although dressed up in scientific garments, it is mostly no different than my example of finding the random rock and hypothesizing on how it got there.
Are you getting stoned again???
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