From: stav@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Lowell Staveland)
Subject: Re: Jared Diamond's _The Third Chimpanzee_
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 00:38:39 GMT

gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
> > >Now, just because human females do not advertise ovulation in such an
> > >explicit and elaborate way as chimpanzees, for example, does not mean
> > >the signs are not there for all to see.
> >  
> > Humans manage fine with subtle cues, so why do chimpanzees go to such explicit
> > and elaborate lengths to advertise ovulation?  This is the sort of question a
> > scientist would ask before reaching for the flamethrower.

>Sorry, but proposing that "human females do not advertise ovulation in
>such an explicit and elaborate way as chimpanzees", even managing as
>you say "fine and subtle cues", does not in any way at all concede a
>point that in human females ovulation is hidden.

Ovulation in chimpanzees as well as humans is hidden, you can not watch
it happen. Howver, in chimps there are physical signs indicating it
occurs. This does not happen in humans. There is no external physical
indication of ovulation. IT seems like an inflated statement that
you can tell when a woman ovulates. As the point was made before, not
even woman are good at telling when it happens. That you can do it
seems absurd.  I would bet if you lined up 10 women you could do no
better than chance to tell which woman was ovulating.  

>My query rather concerned the implication how it is that those who do
>regard such cues as hidden have become so insensitive to them, yes? As
>I had first posted one would be caused to consider how it came about
>that in certain societies such cues are regarded as illness, or as a
>behavioural anomaly for which females should be shut away, or indeed
>punished.

>If ovulation cues are so hidden in women, how is it they are so
>obvious as to have brought about such fundamental social sanctions
>against them we yet grapple to resolve.

Seems to me you are misconstruing menstruation with ovulation.

>Or is such enquiry to be regarded as "unscientific" here, being too
>"socially subversive" perhaps? I am a little weary of people accusing
>me of reaching for a "flame-thrower" as I respond vigorously to debate
>in this group. Rather than carrying on with such patent nonsense, how
>about simply proceeding with the matter at hand?
 
You flame because your words are pointedly inflammatory, instead of
factually refuting. 


>This *IS* the specialist forum sci.anthropology, and in that context
>I don't know that science asks "why" anything at all. Why is the moon,
>for heavens sake? It just is, isn't it?.

If science simply said it just is, then there would be no need for
science, because there would be no question. Why searches for root
causes. How examines the process between cause and effect. You statement 
is ludicrous from an empirical perspective.

>Or maybe that moon-fella, that adulterer Tjapara is chasing that loose
>sun-woman Pima, who is also Waijai, across the sky while the cuckolded
>husband Purukuparli mourns the death of their sick boy Tjinyani, who
>hadn't been looked after properly because those two had been fooling
>around bonking and playing up all day instead.

>Very much to the point, to suggest "chimpanzees go to such explicit
>and elaborate lengths to advertise ovulation", and then seek to ask
>*why* they do it, is the most blatant and unsubstantiated conjecture
>of the same order as my extract from the Tiwi story above.

The question, to answer the why and how, is about the evolution of behavior.
Specifically, it is about reproductive behavior. To understand it requires
examining reproductive behavior in a range of environments. To understand it
means better understanding human behavior, perhaps with the goal of facilitating
tolerance and compassion among humans, and reducing strife. Or perhaps
simply because of curiousity.

>I respect your mythology and beliefs, but please do not parade them
>here in the guise of science, especially in the same breath with which
>you imply I had myself been unscientific. Flamethrower indeed!

>*What* we do know is that in very many primate species significant
>body changes occur in the females during ovulation, and we are able to
>observe how the other members of the troop (not others of the species
>since they are demonstrably absent from the scene) behave in response.
>We know no more than that it *happens* to the females, to which the
>males respond with certain highly predictable behaviour.

>Similarly, human females have no control over their ovulation cycle
>while human males of certain identifiable social origins might well
>learn to be a little better behaved about, it instead of these really
>very insulting pseudo-scientific attempts to compare the "actions" of
>female chimpanzees with the "actions" of women.

>*Why* they "do it" belongs the realm of Puritanical fervour. The whole
>thread is just a load of unmitigated religious gobbledegook.

These last two paragraphs are not worth commenting on. However, i suggest
you rethink your emphasis on accepting the world at face value.