But with humans in specific, rape is not a great reproductive strategy. The odds of insemination are lower, because things like self-lubrication and uterine peristalsis (which make a big difference) aren’t typically going to occur. Even post-coital cuddling increases the odds of fertilization. Getting into comparative primatology, humans have conspicuously large penises compared to our relatives who do tend to use force as a basic approach to getting sex (gorillas, who have a harem-style arrangement as their basic stable social model).
He may have been misunderstanding some of the same information Jandila supplies. But it’s not an absolute effect, it’s a probabilistic one. I’m more likely to break an egg yolk if I open the egg two feet above my bowl; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen pretty frequently when I open it closer to the bowl (or that it couldn’t land intact from two feet up).
Uh, no. This isn’t a matter of suppressing pregnancies that aren’t wanted—it’s a matter of not boosting the likelihood of pregnancy by means of various reinforcing mechanisms that in all add a minor, though non-negligible, probability of conception.
So you admit that the decrease in the probability of conception is minor. This means that it’s not enough to invalidate hg00′s argument that what you think of as ‘creepy’ strategies, even rape, are adaptive under some circumstances.
So basically you’re saying that Todd Akin’s recent comments about rape were correct?
He may have been misunderstanding some of the same information Jandila supplies. But it’s not an absolute effect, it’s a probabilistic one. I’m more likely to break an egg yolk if I open the egg two feet above my bowl; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen pretty frequently when I open it closer to the bowl (or that it couldn’t land intact from two feet up).
Agreed. However, Jandila requires it to be an absolute (or almost absolute) effect for the argument against hg00′s point to work.
Uh, no. This isn’t a matter of suppressing pregnancies that aren’t wanted—it’s a matter of not boosting the likelihood of pregnancy by means of various reinforcing mechanisms that in all add a minor, though non-negligible, probability of conception.
So you admit that the decrease in the probability of conception is minor. This means that it’s not enough to invalidate hg00′s argument that what you think of as ‘creepy’ strategies, even rape, are adaptive under some circumstances.
hg00 didn’t make the argument that it was adaptive, e just assumes it is. I respond to that too, if you’ll look at my dialogue with em a bit further.