HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Date: 20 Aug 92 03:28:37 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

In article <BsvHvw.4s4@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen C. Miller) writes:
>Breast size certainly varies with race.

Well, non-erect penis size certainly does.  What women by race
generally give birth to the biggest babies?  I mean, let's not lose
sight of what the damned things are FOR. 

>I remember reading an article in American Anthropologist a few years ago
>that speculated that large breasts evolved to resemble buttocks.  

Oh, this was a Desmond Morris jewel, the original T-and-A
anthropologist.  He was wrong on several counts:    

1) breasts are not there for sexual enticement but to feed babies.
Since the human gives birth to kids that are an appreciable fraction of
the adult weight, relative to other primates, it's pretty natural that
we'd have pendulous breasts.

2) breasts are NOT hemispherical, despite some people's dreams.  Ever
see a National Geographic or safari travelogue?  I wouldn't call those
things "hemispherical" or anything CLOSE.  They are maintained in their
pseudoadolescent state by means of a hefty fatty diet and restrictive
clothing.  Certainly women in neolithic or paleolithic cultures, or on
the savannahs, wouldn't be holding `em up with hammocks they way we do.
Many Western women also do not breastfeed (although it's come back into
vogue lately), so they dry up faster and the breasts retain their
adolescent shape for longer.  

Why do I get the feeling that, if there were 15th century Chinese
anthropologists, they would have spun a really involved tale about how
teensy feet evolved among women?  

>And
>then the question was, did breasts evolve to resemble buttocks, or
>buttocks evolve to resemble breasts?  Yessiree, fascinating questions
>these physical anthropologists work on...

I think they spend too much time, as was once said, thinking not about
paleolithic culture but about the Miss America contest, especially when
sexual characteristics are studied.   

>But the article concluded that large breasts mostly evolved as display
>mechanisms of some type, and that big butts probably did too.

Again, someone forgot what breasts were used for.  They feed babies. 

>Fascinating.

Indeed.  And illustrative.  I'm not slamming you, just the idea. 

Regards,
Janis C.
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: gpowell@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu (Eugene Powell)
Subject: corrected post Eve/Adam
Followup-To: deleted 3 lines 
Originator: gpowell@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu
Organization: Dept. of Entomology - NCSU, Raleigh, NC
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:09:37 GMT

 The real point of the fall of mankind/womankind IMOHP is
people, no matter how many were present at the time, had no
knowledge of evil until in their impudence they desired the
knowledge of both. Since they had not developed/had planned
for them the ability to assimilate this more massive amount
of knowing, they were no longer capable of innocent and
barged into the earthly realm of experience.

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
From: dcleek@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dick Cleek)
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Originator: dcleek@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Reply-To: dcleek@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 13:02:30 GMT

From article <1992Aug13.055120.413@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU>, by dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott):
> I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) who's
> girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.
> 
> 
> Does anyone know a reference for this?

sure...
The National Enquirer if it was in the US
I'm not sure what your Aussie equivalent
of this moronic rag is.
-- 
..........   .........................         .......................
: |_|\/\/ :   Dick Cleek                        dcleek@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
:.centers.:   Univ.of Wisconsin Centers         dcleek@uwcmail.uwc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: kcohen@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Kevin B Cohen)
Subject: Chimpanzee anatomy
Summary: need some data/sources
Keywords: primates, anatomy
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 17:40:39 GMT

I need some very specific data on the anatomy of the chimpanzee vocal tract. 
E.g., average vocal tract length-- from glottis to lips? Cross-sectional areas,
or even cross-sectional distances, at the pharynx, soft palate, hard palate? I 
would much appreciate references or even data on the chimp of your choice. Data
from your research will be appropriately acknowledged.
Also-- anyone know of an English translation of the complete text (i.e., not 
just the summary) of Jordan's 1971 Polish-language article in Folia 
Morphologica?

Kevin Cohen
kcohen@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: arkdr@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Dave Rindos)
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 06:09:35 GMT

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

>In article <BsvHvw.4s4@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen C. Miller) writes:
>>Breast size certainly varies with race.
>Well, non-erect penis size certainly does.  What women by race
>generally give birth to the biggest babies?  I mean, let's not lose
>sight of what the damned things are FOR. 
Beginning of an error... the FATTY tissue around the female breast is
rather unconnected with the ability to produce milk!   And it is THIS
trait that shows quite a bit of variability both within and between
populations.  To ASSUME that a larger MEAN breast size in a given
population was SELECTED FOR would seem most premature.  Instead, it
seems more logical to assume that, like mean hirsuitness in males, this
is a biologically neutral trait and that founder effect, not selection
is the cause. 

>>I remember reading an article in American Anthropologist a few years ago
>>that speculated that large breasts evolved to resemble buttocks.  
This is a plausable argument for the hominID lineage (in other words we
might expect fatty depositis around the mammary tissue to have existed
in Australopithicenes).   Here (and I'll be damned if I can remeber the
genus) another savannah dwelling primate shows convergent evolution in
the same way.

>Oh, this was a Desmond Morris jewel, the original T-and-A
>anthropologist.  He was wrong on several counts:    
>1) breasts are not there for sexual enticement but to feed babies.
>Since the human gives birth to kids that are an appreciable fraction of
>the adult weight, relative to other primates, it's pretty natural that
>we'd have pendulous breasts.
Again, a confusion of the milk-producing tissue with the fatty deposists
around it.  Correct,  however, on the overall form of the lactating,
post-lactating breast.  Finally, why can't something have more than ONE
function??

>Why do I get the feeling that, if there were 15th century Chinese
>anthropologists, they would have spun a really involved tale about how
>teensy feet evolved among women?  
More to the point -- why should a preference for this form of
mutilation have become established in that particular culture???  Valid
question, in fact.
 
>>And
>>then the question was, did breasts evolve to resemble buttocks, or
>>buttocks evolve to resemble breasts?  Yessiree, fascinating questions
>>these physical anthropologists work on...
>I think they spend too much time, as was once said, thinking not about
>paleolithic culture but about the Miss America contest, especially when
>sexual characteristics are studied.   
A bit unfair to the physical anthropologists!  Really, now, it damning
some very fine people by assuming a sexist agenda when none need exist.

Dave

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: lmannine@jyu.fi (Laura Manninen)
Subject: Home
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 15:31:45 GMT


I'm studying the idea of home. I've made a pilot study of what the
students in basic course of cultural anthropology think about home
and how they present in picture.  I got some interesting but also
quite obvious results.  My dubious and implicit motto was by Bob
Dylan (The Ballad of Judas Priest): "It's not a house, it's a home."

Well, I got what I wanted - for this time.  Good pictures of the ideal
home house, and equally good descriptions of what home means to the
students.

Now, I'm interested to know whether there are similar studies going
on anywhere this list concerns.  If so, I would like very much to be in
contacts and change ideas of the idea of THE home.

Greetings fron
Laura Manninen
lmannine@jyu.fi  or  lmannine@finjyu.bitnet
Ad. Department of Ethnology
University of Jyv{skyl{
PL 35
SF-40351 Jyv{skyl{
Finland
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: The creation of Eve
Date: 12 Aug 92 20:49:52 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Aug10.211556.9454@athena.mit.edu> kyee@mtl.mit.edu writes:
|In article <BsMCA0.LB1@oryx.com> xcpslf@decsrv.NoSubdomain.NoDomain  
|(stephen l favor) writes:
|> The comments that have been made also ignore the possibility that the  
|story
|> they refer to developed in opposition to other creation account.  That  
|is,
|> the monotheistic roots of Judaism where developing in direct opposition
|> to the other relegions of the time.  Perhaps the main theme of the  
|Genesis
|> version lies in its theme of a single god vs. the polytheistic themes of  
|the
|> other accounts rather than the everything-is-sexual approach.
|
|Hmmm... and interesting thought.  Is there any evidence in the tale itself  
|that would suggest this?

Well, maybe not in the Biblical text itself, but in comparing it to other
attested creation myths of the era and area, yes.  In fact the text of
one portion (I believe the genesis 1 account) is nearly identical to a
Babylonian polytheistic variant that can be shown to predate it by some
years.

| One thing that bothers me about this theory,  
|though.  Anyone can tell any kind of story, but it's much more difficult  
|to tell a story that others will continue to tell as "traditional."  I  
|would argue that if a creation tale were "developed" to oppose another  
|belief structure, there would be some evidence of this conflict somewhere  
|in the tale or in its variants.  The "evidence" might also appear  
|symbolically as opposed to literally, by the way.

In this case, however, the tale was only slightly changed from the 'opposing'
version.  The changes were mostly in the substitutions of references to
the one God as opposed to references to the various Babylonian ones.  Thus
to someone already familiar with the Babylonian tale, it does indeed have
the suggested impact.

|Also, with regards to the Eve story, we're not concerned with tales of  
|Creation, as much as we are with the so-called Fall of Man.  I don't think  
|it would necessarily appropriate to lump things together like that.

Hmm, I am not sure but what that one doesn't have a Babylonian equivalent
as well.  Certainly the 'characters' have *role* names, not personal names.
[The Hebrew word transcribed as "Eve" is not a normal Hebrew personal name]
This suggest an ancient metaphorical myth.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: rudoff@mdd.comm.mot.com (Doug Rudoff)
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Organization: Motorola, Mobile Data Division - Seattle, WA
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:47:35 GMT


It all depends on your culture. I heard a talk by an anthropologist
who lived with a tribe of Venezulan indians for two years. In the
tribe, women's breasts were not considered sexual objects and the long
pendulous type were preferred since they carried their children on
their back and the breasts could be pulled over the shoulder for the
children to suckle.
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Doug Rudoff          Motorola, Seattle    INTERNET:rudoff@mdd.comm.mot.com
                                            USENET:uunet!mdisea!rudoff   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic,soc.men
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 03:32:22 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)

In article <1992Aug13.175500.18443@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles) writes:
>In <1992Aug13.055120.413@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>
>>I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) who's
>>girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.
>
>>Does anyone know a reference for this?
>
>Yes.  There's one paragraph on this phenomenon in my Physiological
>Psychology text (BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 4th ed., Kalat) that points to oen
>
>I've had two biopsych professors, both hard-core physiological psych types,
>teach this bit to me, and _both_ took great pains to stress cultural factors
>as the cause for the "normal" late gender identity development.  There's
>probably more out there on this phenomenon -- do a lit search on the
>authors.

Yes. Any other explanation would be manifestly Incorrect.

Let's see: these children are wrongly identified as girls, and hence
socialized as females. But at puberty, their hormones click into place,
and they not only start to look like males, but to act like males, too.
And this is supposed to show the strength of "cultural factors"!

Assuming this is correct, what it demonstrates is that cultural factors
don't have much effect when they stand in the way of biology.

-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:733 sci.skeptic:14327
From: rm4@st-andrews.ac.uk (Rosa Michaelson)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: 14 Aug 92 10:00:21 GMT
Organization: St. Andrews University
Organizaton: not realy St. Andrews University

A very good source about 'gender' and 'sex change' is the classic text
    
     GENDER: An Ethnomethodological Approach, Suzzanne J Kessler,
     Wendy McKenna, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1978, isbn 0-471-58445-2

Yes, ok, ethnometodology may not be very fashionable at the moment, but I
am sure the wheel is about to turn again. Be the first to rediscover it on
your block!!
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen C. Miller)
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I'll take two)
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:38:20 GMT

Breast size certainly varies with race.

I remember reading an article in American Anthropologist a few years ago
that speculated that large breasts evolved to resemble buttocks.  And
then the question was, did breasts evolve to resemble buttocks, or
buttocks evolve to resemble breasts?  Yessiree, fascinating questions
these physical anthropologists work on...

But the article concluded that large breasts mostly evolved as display
mechanisms of some type, and that big butts probably did too.

Fascinating.
-- 
--------------------
=
(former rock star turned grad student)
Steve Miller	 		    stcmille@copper.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: gpowell@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu (Eugene Powell)
Subject: Eve and Adam
Summary: The fall of mankind  
Originator: gpowell@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu
Keywords: Good/Evil  
 Was not the real point in the story of the fall of mankind from grace
 
Organization: Dept. of Entomology - NCSU, Raleigh, NC
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 20:14:04 GMT

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: rspear@sookit (Richard Spear)
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Group, JPL
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 15:22:19 GMT

##why are breasts larger than they need to be....

if this is true (and the evidence from other primates seem to suggest that 
breasts _are_ larger than they need to be - where are the physical anthros?)
then my first guess would be for display...cultures have selected for this
attribute.  whenever there is selection for variables in human pops, the
selections are culturally based (color of hair, skin, nose size, shape, etc.).
earlier anthropologists speculated that there were environmental causes for
these differences, but i think that recent work has shown that this is not
so...in _almost_ all cases.

--
richard
rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov
all disclaimers apply
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:740 sci.skeptic:14361
From: zlsiida@fs1.mcc.ac.uk (dave budd)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Two toes (Re: Sex Change
Date: 14 Aug 92 16:05:33 GMT
Followup-To: sci.anthropology
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre
Originator: netnews@uts.mcc.ac.uk

Was it also New Guinea where some inbreeding produced a whole group of 
people who have only 2 toes (per foot)?

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
|           It all depends on the size of your ham sandwich           |
|  Dave Budd, MCC, Oxford Rd, Manchester, England   (44)061-275-6033  |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:715 sci.skeptic:14231
From: dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Sex Change
Date: 13 Aug 92 05:51:20 GMT
Organization: Electrical and Electronic Eng., University of Adelaide

I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) who's
girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.


Does anyone know a reference for this?
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:721 sci.skeptic:14268
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: 13 Aug 92 16:46:26 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

dcleek@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dick Cleek) wrote:
> by dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott):
>> I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) whose
>> girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.
> > Does anyone know a reference for this?
> sure...
> The National Enquirer if it was in the US
> I'm not sure what your Aussie equivalent
> of this moronic rag is.

The reference is Am. J. Med. 62:170, 1977 (cited in Yen and Jaffe:
"Reproductive Endocrinology", 3rd ed., Saunders, 1991).  The condition
is autosomal recessive 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, endemic in the
Dominican Republic.  This blocks the action of testosterone on (visible)
sexual development until puberty.  What makes it interesting is that
the affected people have no serious problem in sexual adjustment:
whether this is due to genetic programming for male gender or to the
society having adjusted its gender expectations to this sort of change
is something more likely to be decided by ideology than the facts...

I'll leave Dick Cleek to imagine what a reply in the same spirit as his
might have looked like.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:728 sci.skeptic:14309
From: gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:05:32 GMT
Reply-To: gascan@dcst16.dc
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

In article 413@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU, dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) who's
>girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.
>
>
>Does anyone know a reference for this?

There have been cases where young boys' testicles failed to descend until puberty,
said boys being raised as girls until the error was discovered.  I know of no 
tribal relationship for this phenomenon.

Please be more careful how you phrase such statements, especially in sci.skeptic:
saying that "girls grow penises" is sufficiently ridiculous to start the flames
flying almost immediately.

---
1. Bill Gascoyne
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic,soc.men
From: 881045m@dragon.acadiau.ca (Richard Muise)
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 13:20:06 GMT

sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:

>In article <1992Aug13.175500.18443@galileo.cc.rochester.edu> scls_ss@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Scoles) writes:
>>In <1992Aug13.055120.413@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU> dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:
>>
>>>I heard a story that there was a tribe discovered (in this century) who's
>>>girls grew a penis when they reached puberty.
>>
>>>Does anyone know a reference for this?
>>
>>Yes.  There's one paragraph on this phenomenon in my Physiological
>>Psychology text (BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 4th ed., Kalat) that points to oen

Also try the DISCOVER magazine about two months back. It had many articles on
sex , including a few about Hermaphodites. The writer of one of the articles
described this tribe, and how it was just one form of hermaphoditism (sp?).

-- 
 " Apple : Changing the world, one person at a time"
 " Friends : Don't let friends do DOS "
       881045m @ dragon.acadiau.ca
       881045m @ ace.acadiau.ca
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:772 sci.skeptic:14798
From: mengel@dcdmwm.fnal.gov (Marc W. Mengel)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: More Things in Heaven and Earth...
Date: 21 Aug 92 21:38:35 GMT
Followup-To: sci.anthropology

kring@efes.physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) writes:

>William R. Smith quotes Hamlet:
>>"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreampt of in
>>your philosophy."

>That Shakespeare quote hurts my logic circuits.

Let us not forget Goedel, who *proved* that in any sufficiently
strong (i.e. self referential) logic system, there exist statements
that are true but not provable; that is to say you can never have
enough axioms to prove everything that is actually true... Of course
Goedel post-dates Shakespeare, but that doesn't make him wrong.
-------
Marc Mengel
mengel@fnal.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: sci.edu
From: sprague@sparcwood.princeton.edu (Cherry Sprague)
Subject: naive ideas and misconceptions in science
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton Regional Schools
Distribution: USA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 13:55:06 GMT

Our district's science curriculum committee is looking for a list or
even better articles that address naive ideas.  Our plan is to develop some 
workshop during professional days that addresses misconceptions or naive
ideas that students (K-12) have that interfer with learning or mastering 
science concepts.