[Mars]

so, therefore, just because ancient amazon tribes have a practice of polyandry does not disprove (or even strongly indicate away from) a biological disposition toward polygyny or monogamy.

Logically consistent, and expressed very clearly!

[General Battuta]

so, therefore, just because ancient amazon tribes have a practice of polyandry does not disprove

Of course not; no one claimed it did.

It does, however, provide evidence that monogamy with male-control/female-security mating structures is not strongly biologically determined, and thoroughly (re)disproves the notion that monogamy is a strongly selected stable state - though the fact that it's a rarity in human history probably took care of that already.

I don't know why you'd bring up polygyny; this society was polyandrous and polygnous.

(or even strongly indicate away from) a biological disposition toward polygyny or monogamy.

Monogamy is strongly contraindicated, but that's very old news (centuries old!)

so, therefore, just because ancient amazon tribes have a practice of polyandry does not disprove (or even strongly indicate away from) a biological disposition toward polygyny or monogamy.

Logically consistent, and expressed very clearly!

And, I'd hazard, completely missing the point; but that's par for the course in charged debates.

[General Battuta]

Composing this already since I figure people are going to get confused.

Arguments for strong biological determinism in mating structures rely on the belief that male mate control and mate diversity, paired with female single-mating and social security, supply a fitness advantage to both males and females which outmatches that available in a promiscuous female/promiscuous male structure. In these formulations the fitness advantage provided by this structure force other structures out of the population.

The key step here is the notion that these structures then became biologically enshrined. If so, it takes only a single counterexample to destroy the entire argument, because:

1) Like most evopsych arguments, biological factor explanations for mating structures rely on the fact that the structures are common;

2) The fact that the structures are common is taken as evidence that they spring from a universal biological source;

3) Any universal biological source would predate arrival in the Amazon (or any given location) by an enormous timespan, due to the timescales of allele spread;

4) If the Amazon mating systems were a product of social pressure overriding biological predisposition, and the biological factors were already present, then they cannot be strongly determinate of mating systems, only weakly determinate. Or, alternatively, the biological factors do not exist.

[Bobboau]

"You'll often see arguments that women are biologically hardwired to seek out single stable mates, because they need loyal resource providers to keep them protected and fed while they raise kids. Men, conversely, are hardwired to try to spread their seed around but to jealously guard their own mates, to guarantee paternity. These evolutionary arguments are used to advance the notion that single-man-single-woman marriage is 'natural', part of our biological predisposition, and that women desire single powerful men while men desire many attractive women.

The cultures of the ancient Amazon defy these claims."

it seemed like this was a refutation of the concept that women focus on quality while men focus on quantity.

[General Battuta]

"You'll often see arguments that women are biologically hardwired to seek out single stable mates, because they need loyal resource providers to keep them protected and fed while they raise kids. Men, conversely, are hardwired to try to spread their seed around but to jealously guard their own mates, to guarantee paternity. These evolutionary arguments are used to advance the notion that single-man-single-woman marriage is 'natural', part of our biological predisposition, and that women desire single powerful men while men desire many attractive women.

The cultures of the ancient Amazon defy these claims."

it seemed like this was a refutation of the concept that women focus on quality while men focus on quantity.

Indeed it is, and this is precisely what this example supplies. You have not yet in this thread raised an objection to the refutation.

The concept is DOA, of course; population biologists have known for decades now that female promiscuity is one of the driving forces in evolution. It is part of the reason for organisms like the Cape Ground Squirrel:



In general in any species the size of the male's testes as a proportion of body mass will vary with the number of sexual partners the females have on average.

[Bobboau]

4) If the Amazon mating systems were a product of social pressure overriding biological predisposition, and the biological factors were already present, then they cannot be strongly determinate of mating systems, only weakly determinate. Or, alternatively, the biological factors do not exist.

or that the cultural factors were atypically strong for this particular behavior in the Amazon.

a single counterexample only disproves the notion that it is universally irresistible, I don't think any biologically derived behavior meets that.

[General Battuta]

4) If the Amazon mating systems were a product of social pressure overriding biological predisposition, and the biological factors were already present, then they cannot be strongly determinate of mating systems, only weakly determinate. Or, alternatively, the biological factors do not exist.

or that the cultural factors were atypically strong for this particular behavior in the Amazon.

a single counterexample only disproves the notion that it is universally irresistible, I don't think any biologically derived behavior meets that.

What you've just done is define the difference between 'strongly determinate' and 'weakly determinate'.

You're not disagreeing with anything I've said. In fact you're agreeing with the last thing I said in the topic right before you entered.

What the Amazon proves, and proves crushingly, is that cultural change alone can produce a society that does not obey what we view as the traditional mating structure, and ergo the traditional mating structure and accompanying quality vs. quantity theory is not strongly biologically determined, not inevitable, and not universal. It means that any given group of humans could go that way.

[Bobboau]

so... are we arguing then?

[General Battuta]

Probably not.

[Kosh]

Maybe Brave New World had it right........

[MP-Ryan]

In general in any species the size of the male's testes as a proportion of body mass will vary with the number of sexual partners the females have on average.

Funny you mention that, as a recent study in crickets has shown that the traditional generalized interpretation we've held for so many years is quite possibly completely wrong.  http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-species-largest-testicles-big-secret.html

Dr Gilbert said: "Traditionally it has been pretty safe to assume that when females are promiscuous, males use monstrously-sized testicles to deliver huge numbers of sperm to swamp the competition - even in primates. Our study shows that we have to rethink this assumption. It looks as though the testes may be that big simply to allow males to mate repeatedly without their sperm reserves being exhausted."

Dr Vahed said: "This strongly suggests that extra large testes in bushcrickets allow males to transfer relatively small ejaculates to a greater number of females. Males don't put all their eggs (or rather sperm!) in one basket."

Traditionally, the assumption is that larger testes produce more sperm per ejaculate and thereby provide males with an advantage in sperm competition (when males are vying for the fertilisation of the female's eggs).

Sperm competition is most intense when the female of the species mates with many males; the male that has produced the most sperm is often assumed to be at an advantage, hence the development of larger testes in such species.

But more promiscuous females also increase the number of mating opportunities available for the male. It is therefore possible that larger testes have evolved in more polyandrous species because they allow an increased rate of ejaculate production, enabling the male to engage in a greater number of successive matings, as indicated by this latest study.

[Mobius]

Fascinating. You'll often see arguments that women are biologically hardwired to seek out single stable mates, because they need loyal resource providers to keep them protected and fed while they raise kids. Men, conversely, are hardwired to try to spread their seed around but to jealously guard their own mates, to guarantee paternity. These evolutionary arguments are used to advance the notion that single-man-single-woman marriage is 'natural', part of our biological predisposition, and that women desire single powerful men while men desire many attractive women.

The cultures of the ancient Amazon defy these claims. Polyandry was the norm, with each wife having multiple husbands and the children being raised collectively. Each child, of course, still only had one male and female parent, but the society didn't think so; they believed in partible paternity, where the child developed from the accretion of multiple fathers' sperm.

Even on the biological level this setup is viable - sperm competition will produce healthier offspring (one of the main drivers behind female promiscuity in most species.)

This social setup seemed to work well with their harsh warrior culture. Women and men alike benefited: women had replacements to step up if a given husband died, and the men built solidarity and friendships over shared wives. Children had a whole network of dads to support them into adulthood. The sex was also probably pretty wild.

Alien to us, but illuminating (to me) as an SF writer - it shows how cultures might develop differently.

Uhm, what's new here?

[General Battuta]

Interesting. Seems to open the route for multiple causes of giant testicularity, rather than closing off any particular explanation.

Fascinating. You'll often see arguments that women are biologically hardwired to seek out single stable mates, because they need loyal resource providers to keep them protected and fed while they raise kids. Men, conversely, are hardwired to try to spread their seed around but to jealously guard their own mates, to guarantee paternity. These evolutionary arguments are used to advance the notion that single-man-single-woman marriage is 'natural', part of our biological predisposition, and that women desire single powerful men while men desire many attractive women.

The cultures of the ancient Amazon defy these claims. Polyandry was the norm, with each wife having multiple husbands and the children being raised collectively. Each child, of course, still only had one male and female parent, but the society didn't think so; they believed in partible paternity, where the child developed from the accretion of multiple fathers' sperm.

Even on the biological level this setup is viable - sperm competition will produce healthier offspring (one of the main drivers behind female promiscuity in most species.)

This social setup seemed to work well with their harsh warrior culture. Women and men alike benefited: women had replacements to step up if a given husband died, and the men built solidarity and friendships over shared wives. Children had a whole network of dads to support them into adulthood. The sex was also probably pretty wild.

Alien to us, but illuminating (to me) as an SF writer - it shows how cultures might develop differently.

Uhm, what's new here?

Excellent documentation of a mating structure very different from the one which has primacy in modern culture.

[Mobius]

But this isn't news. On a side note, that link about ancient Amazon culture is interesting.

[General Battuta]

But this isn't news. On a side note, that link about ancient Amazon culture is interesting.

The link is what the post is about. The post is a summary of the content of the link. There are multiple posts in this thread explaining that this substantiates things we already know, not that it opens new lines of investigation. If you can't read them I don't think you're going to get anything valuable from this discussion.

[Kolgena]

Weren't the Amazonians a strongly matriarchal society? May explain polyandry, as the dominant gender seeks to have many of the submissive gender, regardless of what those genders are.

Or maybe my mind is polluted by Hollywood, and the Amazonians have no such culture.

[General Battuta]

Weren't the Amazonians a strongly matriarchal society? May explain polyandry, as the dominant gender seeks to have many of the submissive gender, regardless of what those genders are.

Or maybe my mind is polluted by Hollywood, and the Amazonians have no such culture.

Yeah I think that's just a myth. Given that the Greek Amazons predated contact with the Americas.   The Greek Amazons, if they had any historical basis, were probably somewhere in the ballpark of Scythia.

[Kolgena]

lmao, thanks for clearing that up for me, so I can be embarrassed here rather than IRL.