11–20 of 99 posts
The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
What's "normal" for you isn't for others. Compared to these others those labels are quite appropriate.
I don't think a lot of people today would challenge dawkins on that.
Back when I used to do pedigree analysis, the general rule of thumb was 1/10 chance that the father wasn't what was stated in the pedigree. You would run the analysis and get absolute nonsense results, and then you'd swap a father for an uncle, or a mother for her daughter, and the alleles would all just suddenly line up. We would never tell the families, and since the pedigrees were anonymized before being published…
Clearly lots of people never listen in biology class.
But then the Himba have a high level of extra-pair paternity (EPP). How does this make sense evolutionarily? Maybe a high level of EPP means that more members of the community share your genes? Which gives you an incentive to care for offspring that are fathered by another man (you and that man may share genes to begin with).
Maybe this reduces violence between individuals, which in turn reduces violence more socially? A more peaceful kinship group may have a competitive evolutionary advantage in the long term.
Given the levels of gendered and sexual violence I've seen in many societies, I can see several advantages to the Himba way.
Of course I'm just speculating.
Back when I used to do pedigree analysis, the general rule of thumb was 1/10 chance that the father wasn't what was stated in the pedigree. You would run the analysis and get absolute nonsense results, and then you'd swap a father for an uncle, or a mother for her daughter, and the alleles would all just suddenly line up. We would never tell the families, and since the pedigrees were anonymized before being published…
Same with blood types. Clearly lots of people never listen in biology class.
The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
Nurture not nature!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's "normal" for you isn't for others. Compared to these others those labels are quite appropriate.
The selfish gene states quite well why this happens and is normal in the statistical sense. I don't think a lot of people today would challenge dawkins on that.
The language usage is a bit weird. It seems that caring at all if your child is yours is "obsession" and "fixation". Quite judgemental word choice for something rather normal.
I think it's fair to say that there is a subset of people for whom this kind of thing does border on obsession. By analogy, it's normal to care about your weight, but it's still possible for that normal concern to become an anxious obsession that gets blown way out of proportion.
Do a DNA test, get answer. Obsession over.