Why do we procreate?

[RubberBuccaneer]

Why do we procreate..??

Because, speaking as a parent, our children are wonderful things..

What about amoeba who split in two and then bugger off?

 

[phildwyer]

i think procreation is a strong instinct in animals and plants - look at the length those turtles go to to procreate at the expense of their own danger.It's stronger than the will to survive.

Yep. Further evidence that it is silly to apply the laws of the animal kingdom to human beings.

 

[dormouse]

But can you separate the two? I mean, that's only possible now because of the development of contraception. One could argue that the sexual instinct developed because it helps procreation, without being consciously about procreation, IYSWIM.

Indeed - and why do we sometimes want to have sex with people we don't even like very much? Because our genes like each other even if we don't, that's why. We are mere vehicles. Not that I'm bitter or anything...

Not so up on Dawkins, so I couldn't say. All I know is that I can't bear his unbelievable smugness and crap analysis of society long enough to learn anything about him.

He seems to have a bee in his bonnet about religion which goes rather beyond open-minded scientific scepticism, to say the least. I wonder why.

 

[In Bloom]

Indeed - and why do we sometimes want to have sex with people we don't even like very much? Because our genes like each other even if we don't, that's why. We are mere vehicles. Not that I'm bitter or anything...

How can "we" be vehicles for our genes? Our genes are a part of us.

He seems to have a bee in his bonnet about religion which goes rather beyond open-minded scientific scepticism, to say the least. I wonder why.

Probably a closet Christian

 

[kyser_soze]

Because the function of life is to reproduce itself, otherwise it ceases to exist. This applies to all living things from amoeba's thru plants to complex multi-cellular lifeforms.

I see phil is turning this into yet another attempt to have a go at Dawkins.

If it were true that we are driven by our instinct to replicate our genes, then affluent Westerners, who have an unprecedented opportunity to procreate like mad, would have about twelve children each. And yet we actually have far *fewer* children than any other people anywhere in the world, ever.

You are completely ignoring several huge inputs on reproduction strategies:

1. Survival chances of offspring. In the West, with low infant mortality, good nutrition and high life chances there is no need to have a dozen kids. Couple this with social reasons for small families (economics, cultural pressures to have small families) and that's why Western familiy units tend to be smaller. In a country with high infant mortality and low pre-teen survival rates the more kids you have the more likely one or two will survive to adulthood. Same as other animals who breed in vast numbers because 90% of those ofspring (Turtles for example) will end up being eaten.

2. Parental investment in children. Humans, like many other mammals, invest a huge amount of time and energy into raising their offspring. Having a large brood means this energy is spread further over a wide range (and why in the case of large families often it is elder siblings who take on many of the parental roles for the younger members of the famliy)

 

[phildwyer]

But can you separate the two? I mean, that's only possible now because of the development of contraception. One could argue that the sexual instinct developed because it helps procreation, without being consciously about procreation, IYSWIM.

I thought you were bi? Or at least, you`re very concerned about GLBT issues. So you should find it useful to separate the sexual instinct from the instinct to procreate, as such a distinction challenges the homophobic claim that non-hetero sex is somehow unnatural. Anyway, its got nothing to do with contraception: unlike animals, humans have always frequently indulged in sexual acts that cannot result in procreation.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Yep. Further evidence that it is silly to apply the laws of the animal kingdom to human beings.

One force binds us Phil.

To put us at the top gives in to a Darwinistic/Christian version of things.

 

[kyser_soze]

Yep. Further evidence that it is silly to apply the laws of the animal kingdom to human beings.

Humans are animals phil - we've simply got some super-specialised cognitive processes that most likely came about through a combination of nutrition and environmental changes. That we still procreate, eat and commit violence upon ourselves shows that AFAIC.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

I thought you were bi? Or at least, you`re very concerned about GLBT issues. So you should find it useful to separate the sexual instinct from the instinct to procreate, as such a distinction challenges the homophobic claim that non-hetero sex is somehow unnatural. Anyway, its got nothing to do with contraception: unlike animals, humans have always frequently indulged in sexual acts that cannot result in procreation.

No there's their monkeys that shag everyone, same sex, grandparents, etc.
And don't dolphins apart from commnuicating with UFOs shag for fun?

 

[kakuma]

Indeed - and why do we sometimes want to have sex with people we don't even like very much? Because our genes like each other even if we don't, that's why. We are mere vehicles. Not that I'm bitter or anything...

as confucius once said, "any hole is a goal"

 

[In Bloom]

I thought you were bi? Or at least, you`re very concerned about GLBT issues.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. TBH, I like to avoid getting to caught up in trying to prove what is or isn't "natural," scientism ain't my bag

Anyway, its got nothing to do with contraception: unlike animals, humans have always frequently indulged in sexual acts that cannot result in procreation.

Plenty of animals do the same, other primates being the classic example.

 

[kyser_soze]

I thought you were bi? Or at least, you`re very concerned about GLBT issues. So you should find it useful to separate the sexual instinct from the instinct to procreate, as such a distinction challenges the homophobic claim that non-hetero sex is somehow unnatural. Anyway, its got nothing to do with contraception: unlike animals, humans have always frequently indulged in sexual acts that cannot result in procreation.

You're using the example of homophobic language about homosexuality in a very specific way here phil - being gay DOES NOT stop people wanting to be parents. Indeed, it doesn't stop people wanting to be parents using the tried and tested method of sperm and egg where alternatives such as adoption are available.

BTW, Bonobos, dolphins and many other mammalian species indulge in sex for pleasure, rape is common throughout the mammalian world. You really should update your reading on animal behaviour studies since you are talking utter bollocks about humans being the only animals to have sex for recreational purposes (and that's not even counting homosexuality in the animal kingdom either...)

 

[dormouse]

How can "we" be vehicles for our genes? Our genes are a part of us.

...or are they? Why shouldn't it be the other way around? (I'm not convinced either way - I think it's an interesting theory though.)

 

[fela fan]

Humans are part of the animal group. Members of the animal group procreate coz that's what they do.

No other reason, just coz they do.

Humans have learnt how to regulate procreation without foregoing the pleasures...

 

[In Bloom]

...or are they? Why shouldn't it be the other way around? (I'm not convinced either way - I think it's an interesting theory though.)

Because we are conscious of our genes, they are a part of our personalities and our bodies, but there is still more to a person than their genes. It seems fairly obvious to me that our genes are just one more part of us (the self is a pretty fragile concept, mind)

 

[kyser_soze]

Because we are conscious of our genes, they are a part of our personalities and our bodies, but there is still more to a person than their genes. It seems fairly obvious to me that our genes are just one more part of us (the self is a pretty fragile concept, mind)

I'm reading Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' atm the moment (which knowing your poitics you'd hate) and it makes the apparently academically contentious point that genes and environment interact with each other to make up any one individual.

There's also a great article in this weeks New Scientist asking if humans are still evolving - it's generally accepted that the gene set we've got at the moment (give or take a few for regional differences in skin colour, % fat on bodies etc) have been the same for 6-10,000 years and that the most recent addition is the lactase gene. I only skimmed the editorial on it but it's probably worth a look...

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

as confucius once said, "any hole is a goal"

So all that time in the Far East hasn't been wasted then?

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

There's also a great article in this weeks New Scientist asking if humans are still evolving - it's generally accepted that the gene set we've got at the moment (give or take a few for regional differences in skin colour, % fat on bodies etc) have been the same for 6-10,000 years and that the most recent addition is the lactase gene. I only skimmed the editorial on it but it's probably worth a look...

That could be dynamite for Aryan supremasists

 

[In Bloom]

I'm reading Pinker's 'The Blank Slate' atm the moment (which knowing your poitics you'd hate) and it makes the apparently academically contentious point that genes and environment interact with each other to make up any one individual.

Sounds interesting, shame I'm snowed under with course reading, will have to look it up some time as I've wanted to learn more about the nature-nurture debate for a while now.

 

[kyser_soze]

That could be dynamite for Aryan supremasists

The problem with any conversation about evolution and whether it's still happening will always be the spectre of eugenics (the NS editorial talks about this) and racial supremacists whose outlook on the whole debate is simplistic and driven by their own insecurities and fears then it is actual science or knowledge.

The problem is it is a debate that we need to have, and it requires a completely different outlook from that posited by phil, for example, which places humans at the top of the 'tree' as evolutions finest work, and an understanding that it's a non-directional process that happens as a response to environmental changes.

 

[slaar]

Obviously, in fact, its not a very important drive at all. Furthermore, we must separate the *sexual* instinct (which is indeed very strong) from the instinct to procreate. You, Bloom, in particular, ought to find this interesting. But my point is that Dawkins and his ilk have built an entire philosophy around the assumption that, next to nutrition, procreation is the most important instinct of all--so they are talking rubbish.

This isn't demonstrating a particularly sophistocated grasp of evolution phil. If people in Chelsea have one child who they invest heavily in and is likely to survive, that's as rational as people in Darfur having 15 children, 7 of whom will die before the age of 5 and the rest of whom have a much lower chance of earning much in their lives.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Don't the Lizards need us for something or other?

 

[phildwyer]

This isn't demonstrating a particularly sophistocated grasp of evolution phil. If people in Chelsea have one child who they invest heavily in and is likely to survive, that's as rational as people in Darfur having 15 children, 7 of whom will die before the age of 5 and the rest of whom have a much lower chance of earning much in their lives.

But the point is that socio-biologists claim that we have an *instinct* to perpetuate our genes, that it is precisely *not* rational but somehow hard-wired into our bodies. But this is obviously belied by the fact that, although they *could* have many children who would survive into adulthood, few Westerners choose to do so, and many choose not to have any children at all. So Dawkins et al are yet *again* revealed as a bunch of wankers.

 

[revol68]

But the point is that socio-biologists claim that we have an *instinct* to perpetuate our genes, that it is precisely *not* rational but somehow hard-wired into our bodies. But this is obviously belied by the fact that, although they *could* have many children who would survive into adulthood, few Westerners choose to do so, and many choose not to have any children at all. So Dawkins et al are yet *again* revealed as a bunch of wankers.

phil your idiocy knows no bounds.

Perhaps you could try reading some evolutionary theory you numpty twat.

 

[ricbake]

Carbon sink process that drives the movement of much of the matter in our solar system. Once the sun has finished reacting all that hydrogen will be converted to helium which will collapse under the enormouse preasure of gravity to become mostly carbon. We are just a little side show of the same carbon sink process.

Just a continueing chemical reaction - that we seem to have managed to contaminate with our wanton ways.

 

[In Bloom]

 

[revol68]

u might wanna edit yours now.