Blame it on Darwin, Ladies

"One theory is that it is a tool for mate selection, the idea being that males best able to bring females to orgasm are also the best males to help raise children. Another is that the female orgasm produces movements that increase sperm uptake, and therefore fertility."

I find this kind of thing fun to read (one of my favorite books, for instance, is the Third Chimpanzee) but if you think about it's, er, intellectual mastrubation. Granted, the frequency of intellectual orgasm for this content is like 1000%, but nevertheless...

You can't reverse engineer a machine, so why is we assume you can reverse engineer a person? Inevitably these sorts of theories are heavily embedded in the social thought of the time, and there's really no way of determining the truth and falsehood of most of the claims.

Let me give an example: it's assumed (probably rightly) that we descended from a small band of "intelligent" humans a few million years ago. These Humans undoubtedly had characteristics which made them adaptable to their environment and able to survive (the ability to run, for instance.) However they surely had characteristic which were evolutionary accidents but had no impact on the survival of the species and so wouldn't be affected by natural selection. Hell, we could have Characteristics which actually hinder our survival to a small degree.

Because of the above, it's really impossible to determine a "why" for many of our traits assuming that there even is one...

Hey, when I'm ovulating, I *SO* know how that cat feels. :)

The horny while menustrating thing is because of the constant stimulation. If you could arrange for a similar level of stimulation (maybe use a bunch of those vaginal lubricant suppositories?) at other times in the cycle I'm sure you'd get a similar response.

There's other benefits to sex besides reproduction -- pair-bonding through the release of oxytocin, for example.

that sucks- I hate it when that happens.

Hi matt,

I wrote a comment in response but then it got eaten by the blog demons, so I'll bow out now.

Well jacquline, studies on this have been inconclusive to my knowledge- indicating that some women are "horniest" when they're menstruating, and that others are horniest when they're discussing political philosophy on a blog. There are a few tests you can perform as well (apparently there's some sort of conistency change in the lubrication) but there are clear qualitative differences between that and the cat who freaks out and runs into the middle of street with her ass in the air. The cat (presumably) doesn't make use of an ovulation tester, but just goes crazy.

Even if you remain unconvinced by that, there's still the mysterious fact that ovulation is a complete mystery to men, right? Well that differs markedly from many (dare I say most?) other mammals and is an equal mystery to evo-psychs.

Matt27,

I think that there's a fair amount of science involved in evolutionary biology. Your description turns the discipline into a social science rather than a natural one. I'm sure that would surprise a lot of biologists.

There is certainly a sense in which you're right that it's going to be pretty tough to determine whether our best theories about evolutionary biology are true or false in some absolute, objective way. But no science really gets at that sort of absolute, objective truth. What we get are explanations that best fit the facts as we know them. I'm always a bit puzzled at those who dismiss the claims of biology as somehow different in kind from the claims of physics or of chemistry. All science is grounded in particular worldviews, no?

You can’t reverse engineer a machine,

You can't? You don't happen to be using a non-IBM-produced IBM compatible PC, right?

"but I am skeptical that you are going to be able to debunk the entire academic field in a blog comment thread, nor am I going to be able to defend it to your satisfaction. It is certainly more likely to be correct about a great many things than its polar opposites, blank-slate sociology and anthropology."

What no "Hello"? No "I missed you"? I'll live I guess...
Anyway, no argument here- I'm the first to admit that my opinion is significantly less important than scientists who understand the matter to a greater degree. Nevertheless, what are comment fields for?

You're also right to prefer it over the blank slate baloney. The problem with your argument which mentions Dennett (who I greatly respect by the way) is the concept of "function." Function is a result of environment and intent, and I know that Dennett tries to make very clear that "intent" is not within the realm of evolution (the watchmaker is blind, so to speak), but to the extent that the environment in which these evolutions took place is unknown we can't determine function. For example, we may have evolved certain characteristics as a response to evolved characteristics which no longer exist. Millions of years ago the reptilian jaw split and produced the first ear, but why did it stick around? It may have looked like a plant that existed at the time and provided camoflauge for all we know. This results in unknowability, and as plausible as the theory that "it allowed creatures greater awareness of predators" sounds, we just don't know. With IBM, we know that people were attempting to design the machine around their needs and wants, like calculation.

Scott- you're quite right to find hers more persuasive, but the point is that they're both feasible sounding. I don't have "evidence", but in the part of the article you cited (I still can't pull up the whole thing) her only proof is sketchy sounding counter arguments like female bonobos orgasming "mainly during female-female mountings." I'm at a loss to understand how that's such a counterproof. We may have evolved the capacity to speak in order to say "BEAR, RUN!" (and later evolved further to say "BEAR! make yourself look large but don't look the bear directly in the eye, slowly move away from it, keeping a line of sight open until it seems safe to leave the area altogether!") Now, however, we primarily use speech for social bonding (hey how are you doing? Fine) rather than information transfer, much less "information about danger" transfer. This last tidbit is according to Chomsky, by the way.

As a scientist using the Lloyd method you might conclude that the latter fact is "proof" that we didn't evolve language to alert others of danger. That's inane.

-Matt

I have a pretty good idea of when I'm ovulating -- the near-disabling horniness and sudden appeal of having babies (normally a revolting thought) are big clues.

You’re right that there is such a thing called “reverse-engineering” that goes on, but it goes on with significant knowlegde of the context in which these things develop. True “reverse engineering” is relatively blind to context (as the evolutionary scenario under discussion is to a large extent.)

Dennett discussing this issue in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and argues that the evolutionary process can be understood by analogy to certain principles of engineering. In general, the various parts of an organism do have a functional purpose, and we can learn useful things by holding this assumption, even though it isn't always true. I don't see a significant distinction between the context of reverse engineering an IBM PC and reverse engineering a biological drive.

I know that evo-psych is somewhat controversial among certain scientists (although it seems to be getting less so over time), but I am skeptical that you are going to be able to debunk the entire academic field in a blog comment thread, nor am I going to be able to defend it to your satisfaction. It is certainly more likely to be correct about a great many things than its polar opposites, blank-slate sociology and anthropology.

Micha- you're right that there is such a thing called "reverse-engineering" that goes on, but it goes on with significant knowlegde of the context in which these things develop. True "reverse engineering" is relatively blind to context (as the evolutionary scenario under discussion is to a large extent.) Regardless, that was just an a analogy. And also, hello.

Joe- thanks for your even-handed response. I think you're quite right that there's a fair amount of science in much of evolutionary biology- I don't consider myself much of an expert and I certainly accept the theory of evolution. The "pop science" stuff, often about specifics of human sexuality, tends to fall outside the pale of what science is capable of as I understand it. Having read a few critical assessments (by scientists) of a few books by Pinker, Diamond and others I get the impression that many of these theories are considered at least by some to be highly speculative and much closer to literature than science.

I don't find that argument as persuasive as I find Ms. Lloyd's--my guess why is because one took longer to come up with and has more evidence supporting it.

certainly there are no clear boundaries here, but I think it's important to at least consider these arguments in a social context. With quotes like "female orgasms being but an echo of their male counterparts'" it does, superficially at least, bear a resembelance to the mildly sexist arguments put forth by these kinds of theorists 50 years ago. One thing Jared Diamond does in the Third Chimpanzee (which is itself guilty of plenty of this stuff) is show the social history of theories about why human females don't know when they're ovulating (and don't get bright red asses, as Dave Chapelle points out.) The early theories began with unspoken premises tending toward "they don't know because men don't want them to" which then gradually led up to the decidedly more feminist "they don't know in order to protect themselves."

Obviously discussing whether scientific truths can be "feminist" is a huge can of worms, and I should also point out that I realize the person responsible for the theory we're discussing is female. Nevertheless, I'm not confident that theories about the female orgasm are completely objective.

Here's a good example- what if some female chimps developed the ability to repress their sex drive (at least to a greater extent that males can) at approimately the same time that other females developed orgasms. Both were adaptable, with the "repression" females able to abstain from sex when it threatened their survival (important, obviously, because of gestation) and the "orgasm" females able to control their sex drive via masturbation to the same end. As these were both advantageous, they both were "selected" and the genes were disseminated. The fact that the presence of one negates the neccesity (though doesn't preclude the possibility) of the other is the reason that not all women can have orgasms and/or masturbate. That's the equivalent of a feminist argument for orgasms (they did it to protect themselves) and I just came up with it in 5 minutes.

To me, the above is an example of why this stuff is fun but probably not productive.

-Matt

Matt27,

I've no doubt that a lot of what passes itself off as "science" is actually pretty speculative. Lloyd is, I think, legit, though it's worth pointing out that she's a philosopher of science and not a scientist. She analyzes a whole bunch (can't remember the number) of going theories about the female orgasm and then points out the ways in which those theories don't adequately account for all of the facts. What is left, in her view, is the explanation to which Scott refers.

I think that seems like the sort of thing that counts as science. I suppose that there is room to disagree, though; maybe she is doing something more akin to a social science. Philosophers have a strange relationship with scientists, and many philosophers of science were actually scientists (or at least were, say, science majors) at one point. So I'd tend to put Lloyd on the science side rather than the pop psych side of the question. That said, there are plenty of biologists who still disagree with her.

Scott- you’re quite right to find hers more persuasive, but the point is that they’re both feasible sounding. I don’t have “evidence", but in the part of the article you cited (I still can’t pull up the whole thing) her only proof is sketchy sounding counter arguments like female bonobos orgasming “mainly during female-female mountings.”

Actually, Ms. Lloyd referenced nothing about bonobos. Bonobos were the evidence of someone else that orgasm was important for bonding; Lloyd's theory seems to be that it has no such role, but is a mere echo.

I'm afraid I don't know what your bit about the bears imports.

scott- did I say she was a Mr.? I actually wrote "I realize the person responsible for the theory we’re discussing is female" in one of my first posts.

Anyway, the only evidence I saw on the post was about bonobos and macqaqes, and neither was used to support her case that's why I mentioned it.

My bear example is an analogy which demonstrates the following truth: traits can develop for reasons largely unrelated to the current function of said traits. Just as Lloyd implies that female orgasm didn't originate as a tool for mate selection by pointing to the fact that most macaques orgasm with other females now, you could also claim that the fact that we use language primarily to form social bonds today is a counterproof to the claim that we developed it to assist in survival.

Jacqi- "The horny while menustrating thing is because of the constant stimulation. If you could arrange for a similar level of stimulation (maybe use a bunch of those vaginal lubricant suppositories?) at other times in the cycle I’m sure you’d get a similar response."

I've not heard this- do you have a reference for me to check out (not to disprove you, but simply out of curiousity.)

Actually, Matt27, "as a scientist using the Lloyd method", I guess you would
write an entire book carefully considering the all evidence pro and con.
And by the way, guys, I'm a professor of biology, too.

Elisabeth-
I'd like to quote a relevant statement that I've written on this thread:
"I’m the first to admit that my opinion is significantly less important than scientists who understand the matter to a greater degree."

That would obviously include you. I made it clear that I couldn't even read the rest of the article, much less your book. Nevertheless, the point I made is shared by many mainstream scientists and I feel comfortable saying that in the past theories such as this one have been clearly rooted in the social and cultural values of the period in which they were written. That doesn't imply that yours is, but it explains my healthy degree of skepticism.

Thanks for responding,
Matt