Newbielurker t1_ish671k wrote
Reply to comment by bubliksmaz in TIL: Sperms were thought to move by wiggling their tails side-to-side, like eels, for 350 years. But research shows that they roll as they move forward like a spinning top. by vect77
Eh…that’s certainly a theory.
On the other hand, plenty of reptiles and fish and even small mammals will eat their children. Cuckoos literally have a breeding stategy which works only because the birds whose nests they drop their eggs in don’t recognise the children they raise aren’t theirs.
And there’s also some tribal cultures who for a long time believed that a child would have multiple fathers and would encourage a woman wanting a child to have sex with multiple men to get the best features of all of them.
We’re not naked individualists desperately seeking the survival of our own genes. Most species and for most of our existence (we’ve only had the idea of personal property/inheritance for around 4% of our existence as Homo sapiens) we’ve been tribal. Therefore the idea of “I have to know who my kids are so my genes survive” is a modern idea applied to most species when really most species are more cared about “I have to know who my tribe is so my tribe can survive”
pitchypeechee t1_ishnfkw wrote
Do you mean we as in every single human culture or maybe there are some who figured it out earlier than others?
Newbielurker t1_ishsosh wrote
Well we definitely didn’t discover it prior to the spreading of Homo sapiens out of Africa. So that’s still about two thirds of our existence as a species spent as a collective.
The big shift from “our tribes survival” being the focus to “me and our family’s survival” being the focus really came about as farming, and domestication of animals lead to physical investment in possessions that provide long term value - this created a need to find someone to pass onto, and being closer to seeing how animals breed lead to awareness of our own ways of breeding. Some societies made this adjustment later than others, and some have barely made that adjustment at all
G1CUL t1_ishrr4v wrote
I heard that 2/3 of children born are not those of the mother's husband 😆
Newbielurker t1_ishsy9d wrote
I think I’ve read the same thing, but if I recall correctly there’s a few clarifiers needed.
Two thirds of paternity tests show not the mothers husband. This is not a representative study of all parents- because most don’t seek paternity tests unless there were doubts already. And apparently two out of three times doubts were warranted
KamikazeArchon t1_isinmvy wrote
Your clarifications are correct, but also, the 2/3 is the other way around. 2/3 of paternity tests are "positive", confirming the paternity to the mother's husband/partner. 1/3 are "negative".
bubliksmaz t1_isj90cf wrote
Excuse me, brood parasitism only works because both bird parents go to great lengths to provide for their offspring, because they think they're theirs. Making this happen is the result of a stupidly complex evolutionary arms race.
Why do you think humans specifically would not have the ability to recognize this when all of our ape and primate relatives do? Yes, like many other apes we live communally and thus have an interest in ensuring our tribes survival, as a means to securing our offspring's survival.
Newbielurker t1_isjcpir wrote
I'm trying to figure out what you're trying to argue here.
Are you trying to say that all apes, many living in non-monogamous societies, have the ability to recognise which child is their's, and this is a skill human beings have as well, and we just have things like paternity tests for no reason?
And that in turn, apes are only tribal insomuch as it supports their own individualistic needs to preserve their own bloodline....despite male apes outside of human beings largely not having active roles in raising children beyond mating source
What makes you think animal societies are so individualistic?
bubliksmaz t1_isjfy41 wrote
Oh come on, don't try and move the goalposts like that. Your original point was that early humans had no concept of fatherhood, no connection between the fact they had sex with a person and the baby that popped out 9 months later.
>Originally, like thousands of years ago, childbirth was just some magical thing women did. There was no real connection to the role fathers made- this only came about really with farming. But once they realised that “hey, my black bull’s calves are all a little black, no matter what the cow looks like. I wonder if that’s the same for humans”
This is patently false. Apes have more complex social structures than what you are implying. Take gorillas for instance, where only the silverback is permitted to mate with the females of the group, and if he is ousted the new leader will kill his infant offspring.
Newbielurker t1_isjim4g wrote
Did you read the article you just link to me?
" A new silverback leader is likely to kill the infants in the group, sothe nursing females will stop lactating and their reproductive cycleswill restart. Murdering the young of other males thus makes it possible for the new silverback to sire children of his own."
So its not Gorillas recognising which children are their's and which are not at an innate level that human beings don't have - otherwise they would be wiping out children at any age. It's about having the urge to mate as soon as possible, something harder to do when a new mother is nursing a child. It's a more simpler thought of "I want to mate, and have not had the opportunity to mate before"- something your own article states, rather than "I must wipe out the alternative bloodline to preserve my own" which is fairly complex.
Thanks for sharing the article, because it reminds me at something I was hinting with when I mentioned smaller mammals before. I've seen a similar thing with rabbits. A male rabbit gets a female rabbit pregnant, the female gives birth, and then the male will try to kill the babies to get the female rabbit ready to mate again.
Now, if I'm following your line of thinking - that behavior would not make sense. The rabbit has created the next generation of rabbits. It's not trying to get rid of a rival rabbit's bloodline - it's his kids he's killing! Unless of course, the rabbit's desires aren't as complex as "I must preserve my bloodline for future generations" - and more "I want to mate"
Gorillas are a big more complex I recognise, hence their reluctance to kill their own offspring if they do not have the urge to mate currently (And Gorillas fertility periods I believe are more restrained than rabbits) - but I wonder why you think rabbits will kill their own offspring almost immediately to start mating again if, as you said earlier, primitive species like rabbits both are aware of who their offspring are and have a basic evolutionary function of ensuing their survival. (Source for information on rabbits)
And while we're up, here's an article detailing the many barriers preventing animals from linking sex to pregnancy
It even gives another explanation for why silverback gorillas are likely to wipe out infants if not because of recognising that sex leads to pregnancy.
One more interesting piece of reading - key details - Mountain gorilla males, who tend to spend more time babysitting and caring for children than most ape species - have little or no interest in whether the children are their's or not, but all males focus on caring for the children.
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