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posted by chromas on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the go-away,-batin'! dept.

Why do humans prefer to mate in private?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that human beings generally prefer to mate in private—but why? And why is it so rare? Other than humans, only one other species has demonstrated a preference for privacy during mating: Arabian babblers. To learn more, [anthropologist Yitzchak] Ben Mocha retrieved data from 4,572 accounts of cultural studies—ethnographies—and studied them looking for what he describes as normal sexual practices. Those involved were not trying to shock or avoid punishment for engaging in taboo practices such as incest—and were also not in the pornography business. He found that virtually every known culture practices private mating—even in places where privacy is difficult to find. He also looked for examples of other animals mating in private, and found none, except for the babblers. He also found that there were no explanations for it, and in fact, there were very few other people wondering why humans have such a proclivity. And, not surprisingly, he was unable to find any evolutionary theories on the topic.

Journal Reference:
Yitzchak Ben Mocha. Why do human and non-human species conceal mating? The cooperation maintenance hypothesis, Proceedings of the Royal Society B (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1330)


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Barenflimski on Thursday August 06 2020, @09:50PM (7 children)

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Thursday August 06 2020, @09:50PM (#1032518)

    I'm not sure if you are serious. Are you saying that its not worth asking the question as it may not have a logical answer as "God" did it? Are you being sarcastic? Are you suggesting that we should have a section in our scientific papers that defaults to, "We don't know, but god did it?"

    I'm not sure I agree with your premise that "extra-planar" is taboo. I was under the impression that it wasn't taboo, it was just a dead end with our current understanding of how things work as anecdotal is hardly evidence. I'd love to find out that the ghosts I've seen are real but we couldn't even find the ectoplasm to measure.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by EJ on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:27PM (6 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:27PM (#1032544)

    The fact that you think I'm being sarcastic is evidence of the problem. It's like scientists believe it is possible to completely understand and prove everything, and if they haven't found the answer they just haven't looked hard enough yet. That can take them down a rabbit hole of uselessness where they end their lives without contributing anything useful that they could have otherwise.

    It is entirely possible that humans experienced a breeding situation similar to dogs. Look at science fiction like Stargate. Maybe we aren't a product of randomness as scientists would like to believe. We could be entirely synthetic, and unlike any other life in the universe because we did not evolve through natural means like scientists think we must have.

    Whether or not you believe in the Christian God, it is completely possible that some power beyond our comprehension interferes with our universe. It's even possible that we are all just simulations in a computer program. Maybe scientists think that's not useful information, but it possibly is. If it turns out, as current questions about relativistic inconsistencies being found in the astronomical observations imply, that the rules don't always apply, it could help to direct our attention to more important areas of study.

    Too many scientists refuse to believe in God because they want to be God. That can put blinders on them and hobble their efforts to understand things that are truly outside their control.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:48PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:48PM (#1032566)

      Funny, those same scientists who you claim 'wanted to be god' figured out things like electricity, circuits, signals, and so forth as well as vaccines and antibiotics. If they were just satisfied with 'god did it', you probably wouldn't be alive and you definitely wouldn't have an electronic computing device to share your opinions.

      Or did you pray to read Soylentnews and god posted for you?

      Every piece of technology is built on people who kept looking for answers. If every scientist thought like you we'd all be primitive hunter-gatherers. Your argument is absurd - where would you draw the line? "Figuring out nuclear physics made sense, but you shouldn't investigate quantum mechanics." "Figuring out bacteria makes sense, but you shouldn't investigate viruses." "Figuring out adrenaline makes sense, but don't investigate testosterone." What?

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:03PM (3 children)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:03PM (#1032577) Journal

        It's not an absurd argument, merely a useless one. Solipsism is one of the valid philosophical positions. There's absolutely no was to disprove it. Similar arguments apply to "because some god willed it so". Your car may only run by favor of Pele (Hawaiian goddess of fire). There's no way to disprove this, but it's not a useful position to take. And there are few reasons to prefer some particular god over any others except "Well, I'm familiar with that one".

        FWIW, when properly understood I *do* believe that everything that happens is due to the action of the gods, but I wouldn't say will, because they're not anthropomorphic. They're distributed fragments of DNA that are commonly shared among people and cause them to feel certain things and react in certain ways...though *do* realize that that's an externalized description, and not the way it looks/feels to the person who experiences their actions. Generally one "is just moved to act that way", or "is just attracted to ?". Occasionally they can erupt into consciousness, but if it's more than a very brief eruption you're crazy, or "ridden by a loa". From within the mind it looks/feels like the actions historically attributed to gods. From outside it looks like ... well, Jung called them archetypes, but he misunderstood them because he didn't understand evolution, genetics, or computer programming. Think of them as a built-in ROM library of routines that are activated by the lower levels of the brain's OS, and that consciousness is the very top layer, where the brain is talking to itself about itself.

        OTOH, that's just my model of what I've seen and understood. I can think of no way to prove it. But it seems to me to fit historical usage of the word.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
        • (Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Friday August 07 2020, @03:46AM (1 child)

          by ChrisMaple (6964) on Friday August 07 2020, @03:46AM (#1032701)

          If you believe solipsism is correct, you cannot have any objection to my bashing your head in.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday August 07 2020, @12:25PM

            by Immerman (3985) on Friday August 07 2020, @12:25PM (#1032832)

            There's a world of difference between "correct" and "a valid philosophical position"

            The latter only implies that the position isn't logically inconsistent or somehow disproven (often a very difficult thing to do in philosophy)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @04:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @04:29PM (#1032980)

          I don't think you're answering the same question. The parent post author, EJ, was indicating that 'god' is an explanation for why things work and more importantly that humans can't understand it.

          I don't mind if Pele is the reason my car works, provided I can understand what Pele is doing. It's when you insist I shouldn't even inquire that I have an issue.

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:08PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday August 06 2020, @11:08PM (#1032578)

      Evidence of the problem, that people don't believe in things that have absolutely no evidence to support them?

      Even if God really did do it, the question remains *how* did God do it. There's presumably some physical mechanism It put in place to control the behavior of physical things.

      And if we understand enough of the mechanisms, it's very likely we'd see evidence of the nature and intent of the one who put them in place. Thus far we've seen none, but have seen a great deal of evidence of severe design shortcomings that suggest that either God is incompetent, or evolution is blind.

      The former goes strongly against the (generally presumed) nature of (a personal) God, while the latter is exactly what you would expect of evolution. Which suggests that if God does exist, It chose evolution as Its tool, and didn't interfere much if at all in the details for at least the last half-billion years.