Wednesday, October 05, 2005
I suspect most readers have perused Demonic Males at some point, and stumbled upon the concept of developmentally arrested orangutan males who mate with females by raping them (in contrast to the bigger males whose entreaties are welcomed). Here are two papers that readers might find of interest in relation to this topic....
Male orangutan subadulthood: a new twist on the relationship between chronic stress and developmental arrest:
So why is this strategy hanging around? Well, Male bimaturism and reproductive success in Sumatran orang-utans:
The data set is very small (though there aren't really that many orangutans to sample from out there, are there?). But I think it makes it clear that alternative reproductive strategies for complex organisms isn't unfathomable. It makes Henry's old ideas about father absence seem more plausible I think. Unfortunately the current ascendency of Evolutionary PsychologyTM allows the scientifically interested lay public to buy into the idea of phenotypic monomorphism, that there is one strategy to rule them all. And of course this results in bitch-fests between conservatives and liberals (or whatever typology you want to set up) aiming to lay claim to the mantle of ideology most in keeping with the Most Perfect Human Behavior. |