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My wild side features: wild things blog
2-12-08: PERMALINK
Nature, CNN, CBS, the Economist, and the New York Times reveal that incest, bestiality (and possibly homosexuality) were all crucial to the survival and emergence of modern humanity
REFERENCES INCLUDED BELOW
| Let's begin with bestiality. How the hell could it be that bestiality had anything to do with the salvation of the human race?
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It's simple. At least several times during humanity's transition from ape to human, our ancestors copulated with our more primitive primate cousins quite a lot. Enough to leave plentiful evidence in our genetic record. Some of it I suppose consisted of the same strange deeds some modern males (and females!) are known to do even today. I.e., wanting to see what it's like to do other species1. But most cases probably happened due to really harsh environmental circumstances, where single human ancestors or tiny groups of same were forced to seek long term refuge among less evolved cousins due to extreme conditions.
Of course, today there's sufficient difference in our DNA so that hybrids of something like humans and chimpanzees, or humans and gorillas probably can't occur. But back six to ten million years ago, we were still closely enough related so hybrids could happen. We today ARE one of those hybrids. And so are the peace-loving but sex-crazed bonobo chimpanzees, too.
So basically today's human race sprang at least partially if not entirely from acts we'd consider bestiality today.
Let us now move onto incest. How has incest helped the human race to survive?
First off, human DNA appears to have a built-in preference for a certain amount of incest. For it's been found that sex between distant cousins produces not only the largest number of children, but the healthiest children, too2. Too little inbreeding over a matter of generations can in fact lead to a higher rate of embryo and infant deaths and sickness.
So it's a simple fact today that if humanity ever found itself in a crisis of too few people, one of our best bets to repopulate the world would be to arrange marriages between cousins of a suitable degree.
Heck: even the Christian bible implies the Earth was originally populated via a strong element of incest in the early generations! And that the same thing happened a second time after the flood!
The preference our DNA has for a certain degree of incest often causes major social problems for certain folks even today. Despite us trying to outlaw any very close degrees of same.
Never-the-less, modern society in many nations today remains strongly influenced or structured by incestuous relationships of one kind or another. No matter what the official line may be.
One reason incest both known and unknown remains so important to us biologically and socially may be that it saved the entire race at least once, and likely several times in prehistory.
The most important case may have been the super-volcanic eruption some 70,000 or so years ago, which created something like a world-wide nuclear winter extinction event.
The numbers of human beings then appears to have dwindled to as few as 15,000 world-wide.
That's 15,000 people, spread across all of Africa and southern Asia, with maybe some in Europe too3.
And this is thought to have been before people had begun gathering into groups big enough to form good-sized villages-- or even settled down at all for the most part. So we're talking basically individual families-- often consisting of a single mother and a few kids. Or two or three men in a roving gang. A smattering of lone hunters. And maybe a small phalanx of true nuclear families possessing both a father and mother and kids.
This tiny number of folks being spread out over such a vast land mass means many of them may not have seen or encountered strangers for many years at a time.
During this period, it became really tough to survive. So tough humanity came close to dropping below the minimum viable population to continue on. Or, in other words, our ancestors then almost went the way the Neanderthals would around 40,000 years later.
Many children then likely grew up never knowing anyone else but their parents and siblings. That was their entire world. And sex was one of the very, very few ways any of these prehistoric folks could ever actually feel good about their plight. A great many of these people lived naked or close to it in caves and trees and open fields, and ate bugs, nuts, fruits, berries, and rotting animal carcasses left behind by predators. They lived lives of mind-numbing tedium largely broken only by moments of sheer terror and panic, and awful bouts of suffering stemming from injury or illness. They also didn't have a whole lot to say to one another-- as they may still have been struggling to invent spoken language-- and may have been depending heavily upon hand signs. You think there wasn't a lot of incest went on under such conditions? Especially where adult children were concerned?
Of course it did! Else we wouldn't be here today! And stuff like that is probably why our contemporary DNA isn't quite as adverse to incest as many would have you believe.
Today's scientists credit that 70,000 year past bottleneck with some radical advances in human physiology and mental capabilities. Because when the genome is squeezed that way, it can greatly accelerate the forces of evolution.
So how does homosexuality fit into the survival and advancement of the human race?
Well, although comparatively little research has yet been done into the matter, from the existing studies it appears homosexuality is largely genetically determined (at least for men: women appear to have more of a choice in orientation).
But logically speaking, homosexual couples can't pass on their genes child-wise. So how could such DNA ever stay in the human line from generation to generation?
By being a byproduct of something which DOES get passed on. Like large and diverse brains, and greater fertility in general for the women involved.
Lastly, homosexuality apparently offers a survival advantage of some sort not only to humanity, but many (maybe all) animal species in general. Even if we're still guessing as to all the reasons why. For homosexuality has been observed in many species besides man4.
So the bottom line of all the above is: you and I wouldn't be here today if our great-great-great-(and so on and so forth)-grand parents hadn't committed LOTS of acts of bestiality, incest, and homosexuality along the way.
Footnotes:
"...humans and chimpanzees first split up about 10 million years ago. Then, after evolving in different directions for about 4 million years, they got back together for a brief fling that produced a third, hybrid population with characteristics of both lines.
That genetic collaboration then gave rise to two separate branches — one leading to humans and the other to chimps."
"...the final human-chimp split was...no earlier than 6.3 million years ago, and more likely in the neighborhood of 5.4 million years."
-- DNA Study Maps Human-Chimp Split By MATT CRENSON; 5-17-06; http://news.yahoo.com
-- DNA study Human-chimp split was messy - May 17, 2006; http://www.cnn.com/
-- Chimpanzee and human ancestors may have interbred Genetic analysis suggests a messy split between the two lineages. Michael Hopkin; Published online 17 May 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060515-10
-- Study: Chimps, Humans Mated
DNA Shows Two Species Split 10 Million Years Ago After Long, Messy Affair - CBS News; May 17, 2006
-- Interspecies Sex: Evolution's Hidden Secret? James Owen
for National Geographic News
March 14, 2007
"...the human head louse is a sister species to the chimpanzee louse, but the pubic louse is closely related to the gorilla louse."
"Among people, the pubic louse is usually spread by sexual contact, but the gorilla louse could have been contracted in some other way.
"We’ll never know if it was sex or something more tame,” Dr. Reed said."
"The transfer doesn’t have to be sexual," he said, "but presumably it does require reasonably close contact."
-- In Lice, Clues to Human Origin and AttireMarch 8, 2007 By NICHOLAS WADE
-- Question of the Day: How Do You Get Crabs From A Gorilla? March 7, 2007 12:00 PM, by Carl Zimmer
"Apes are special because they are so closely related to us," says Mr Redmond. "Chimpanzees and bonobos are our joint closest living relatives, differing by only one per cent of DNA - so close we could accept a blood transfusion or a kidney. Gorillas are next, then orang-utans."
-- Should apes have human rights? 29 March 2007
-- Almost Human, and Sometimes Smarter - New York Times By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD; April 17, 2007
-- Chimps 'more evolved' than humans - being-human - 16 April 2007 - New Scientist by Bob Holmes
-- Seed: No Longer a Mind of Our Own New research is blurring the species boundary, forcing us to rethink what it is to be human.
by G.A. Bradshaw; June 14, 2006
-- HIV's Ancestry Traced to Wild Chimps
Associated Press; May 25, 2006
"...they found the woman unclothed, and 'engaged in an indecent act with a horse,'..."
-- Nude horse love woman charged | Metro.co.uk; November 29, 2006
"...Sharon Tendler, a 41-years-old Jewish millionaire from London married her beloved Cindy, a 35-years-old dolphin..."
-- Obsessed tourist 'marries' Israeli dolphin; 'I'm not a pervert'; December 29, 2005; underwatertimes.com
-- Can humans mate with other animals? - By Torie Bosch - Slate Magazine; Nov. 14, 2006; slate.com
-- Whale-dolphin hybrid has baby wholphin - Science - MSNBC.com; AP; April 15, 2005; msnbc.msn.com
"So if humans evolved from apes, which ones are our closest relatives? Dutch primate researcher Frans de Waal spoke with SPIEGEL about bloodthirsty chimpanzees, sex-crazed bonobos, the origin of the family and the nature of human beings."
-- SPIEGEL Interview: The Two Apes within Us: Hippy Sex Fiends and Brutal Machiavellians; August 24, 2006; spiegel.de
"A wider choice of mates reduces people's reproductive output."
"the most fecund marriages are between distant cousins."
"outbreed too far and other difficulties arise as genetic incompatibilities
between the parents make reproduction harder. (A well-known example is the
case of rhesus blood groups, when the mother's immune system may reject a
fetus because of its father's genes.)"
-- Kissing cousins, missing children; Feb 7th 2008
-- Daddy's Girl Millionaire Bruce McMahan loved his daughter so much, he married her. by Kelly Cramer
September 27th, 2006; villagevoice.com
-- Should Incest Be Legal? | TIME By MICHAEL LINDENBERGER/LOUISVILLE; Apr. 05, 2007
"The rich have frequently chosen inbreeding as a means to keep estates intact and consolidate power"
-- Go Ahead, Kiss Your Cousin Heck, marry her if you want to By Richard Conniff; DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 8 (August 2003)
-- Cousin Marriage Conundrum The ancient practice discourages democratic nation-building by Steve Sailer; The American Conservative,
Jan. 13, 2003, pp. 20-22
"Fourteen percent of those surveyed said they had had sex with a member of their own family."
-- Most Indian men want virgin brides - poll; Reuters; 06 Nov 2006; alertnet.org
-- UCSB Study on Sibling Detection Mechanism Highlighted in 'Nature'; February 15, 2007; ia.ucsb.edu
-- Study finds out why it's gross to kiss your sister | Health | Reuters By Maggie Fox; Feb 14, 2007; reuters.com
-- Ewwwww! UCLA anthropologist studies evolution's disgusting side; 27-Mar-2007; Contact: Meg Sullivan
msullivan@support.ucla.edu
310-825-1046
University of California - Los Angeles
-- Study: Prehistoric Man Had Sex for Fun
; April 29, 2007
-- Couple stand by forbidden love By Tristana Moore; 7 March 2007
"...the Stubings seem to be a textbook example of a phenomenon called genetic sexual attraction (GSA). It occurs between blood relatives who have been separated for most of their lives, and meet in adulthood; it has been known to happen in all sorts of permutations -- father/daughter, birth mother/son, siblings -- even, occasionally, same-sex relationships between people who would not otherwise identify themselves as homosexual."
"...more than 50% of people who sought post-adoption counselling "experienced strong sexual feelings in reunions."
"When relationships such as this do become sexual, they tend greatly to complicate knee-jerk assumptions about abuse and incest: "There is no force, coercion, usually no betrayal of trust," Greenberg told Kirsta. "And no victim. If sex occurs, it involves consenting adults."
-- Blood ties : Mail & Guardian Online by
Aida Edemariam and Kate Connolly;
06 March 2007
-- Moms in court for aiding dad’s rape of daughters; 8 March 2007
-- Incest: an age-old taboo; 12 March 2007
"They met, fell in love and had four children. But their story has horrified Germany. They are brother and sister, separated at birth and reunited years later. And their story is astonishingly common."
-- Tainted love: Are we wrong to treat incest as a taboo? by Ruth Elkins; 04 March 2007
"Many of Germany's European neighbours, such as Belgium, Holland, and France, do not treat incest as a criminal offence."
-- Brother and sister fight for right to continue their incestuous affair By Tony Paterson; 26 February 2007
-- 69,000 BC: Humanity may be nearly driven to extinction by a massive volcanic eruption which intensifies the current Ice Age via a 'nuclear winter' type effect; 10-31-05
"Human sexual behavior is not a free-form performance, biologists are finding, but is guided at every turn by genetic programs."
"Desire between the sexes is not a matter of choice."
"The most direct evidence comes from a handful of cases, some of them circumcision accidents, in which boy babies have lost their penises and been reared as female. Despite every social inducement to the opposite, they grow up desiring women as partners, not men."
"Sexual orientation, at least for men, seems to be settled before birth."
"Studies of twins show that homosexuality, especially among men, is quite heritable, meaning there is a genetic component to it."
"...having older brothers substantially increases the chances that a man will be gay. Older sisters don’t count, nor does it matter whether the brothers are in the house when the boy is reared."
"The fraternal birth order effect is quite substantial. Some 15 percent of gay men can attribute their homosexuality to it, based on the assumption that 1 percent to 4 percent of men are gay, and each additional older brother increases the odds of same-sex attraction by 33 percent."
Another idea for why homosexuality exists in men is that it's a side effect of increasing brain diversity-- and so possibly a byproduct of the same process which made human brains grow larger and more complex over millions of years.
Or, in other words, as we became smarter, we also some of us became homosexual.
-- Pas de Deux of Sexuality Is Written in the Genes By NICHOLAS WADE; April 10, 2007
-- Homosexual Activity Among Animals Stirs Debate
James Owen; National Geographic News
July 23, 2004
-- Moms' Genetics Might Help Produce Gay Sons By Randy Dotinga; Feb. 21; 2006; medicinenet.com
-- Further evidence that genetics has a role in determining sexual orientation in men; 7-Nov-2007; Contact: Veronica McGuire
vmcguir@mcmaster.ca
90-552-591-402-2169
McMaster University
"If you are male, having more older brothers makes it more likely you will be gay - and a new study suggests the basis of this is biological rather than environmental."
-- Male sexuality may be decided in the womb; 26 June 2006; Alison Motluk
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Over a third of former American Football players interviewed had sexual relations with men, says study; 29 October 2007; The University of Bath
Nature, CNN, CBS, the Economist, and the New York Times reveal that incest, bestiality (and possibly homosexuality) were all crucial to the survival and emergence of modern humanity
My wild side features: wild things blog
2-12-08: PERMALINK
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