Monday, March 14, 2022
Sorry Darwin, but it turns out promiscuity benefits females too
Yes. It has always appeared to me that women are pretty keen on sex. The risks they take when they have affairs are evidence enough of that. Female straying is not the sole cause of single motherhood but it is one of the causes -- and single motherhood can be a pretty deprived lifestyle
I ONCE stole a lion’s girlfriend. At the time, I was in the Masai Mara in Kenya experimenting with audio playback as a means of deciphering lion communication.
This involved blasting a recording of a male lion’s roar into another’s territory and waiting for a response. Three lions – one female and two males – raced over to our Land Rover to investigate. The males quickly got bored when they failed to find anything that resembled a rival. The female, however, pinned the vehicle to the spot, legs akimbo, for over 2 hours. She was in oestrus and, in addition to mating with her consorts, she also wanted to mate with us. Not that this was anything special for the lioness: fertile females are known to mate 100 times with multiple males in a matter of days.
I was shocked and quietly thrilled to discover her licentious nature. At university, I was taught that males, with their endless supply of sperm, are wired for promiscuity, whereas females, with their limited number of eggs, must be choosy and chaste. Didn’t the lioness understand this “universal law”?
My research since has exposed how sexist bias has been baked into evolutionary biology and warped our understanding of the female animal. We should remember that great scientists, even geniuses like Charles Darwin, are also people of their time. Darwin’s second great theoretical masterpiece – The Descent of Man, his book containing his theory of sexual selection – cast females in the role of the Victorian housewife: coy, submissive and invariant.
This theory of passivity was given an empirical lifeline in the 1940s by a British geneticist called Angus Bateman, whose legendary fruit fly mating experiment “proved” that females have little to gain from multiple mating, whereas males do. Bateman’s paradigm seared these deterministic sexual archetypes into evolutionary lore and crowned males as the dominant drivers of change.
The main trouble with this neat binomial classification is that it is wrong. Just ask the lioness. Her flagrant promiscuity is now understood to be a means of confusing paternity and protecting her offspring against the threat of infanticide by incoming males. This strategic sexuality was first discovered in langur monkeys by the primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy in the 1970s, and has now been documented in dozens of species.
Hrdy leads a growing army of scientists keen to look beyond such misogynistic myopia and recognise the female of the species as just as promiscuous, aggressive, competitive and varied as the male. But what is shocking is how stubborn the stain of Victorian sexism is proving to be, and how far it has spread.
When Patricia Gowaty began doing DNA paternity tests on songbird eggs in 1984, she discovered that each nest frequently contained multiple fathers, despite the apparent monogamy of their parents.
Members of the male ornithological establishment responded by insisting the females had been “raped”. But radio trackers subsequently revealed females actively seeking sex with neighbouring cocks. Since then, a polyandry revolution has revealed that multiple mating is the norm for females, from lions to lizards. The reason is quite obvious: don’t put all your eggs in one basket – greater genetic diversity means healthier offspring.
Gowaty, like me, has never tried to hide her politics. She believes in equal representation of both sexes. But, as Darwin’s Victorian values show us, science is always political. A feminist perspective is urgently needed to topple centuries of androcentrism and rebrand female sexual agency, in lionesses or songbirds, from unexpected to a winning maternal strategy.
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How a Hindu warrior priest is climbing India's political ranks
Northern India had a hard time under centuries of Muslim rule and that has not been forgotten. Islam remains deeply unpopular among Hindu Indians
A Hindu supremacist monk — who supports banning the hijab at colleges and has a history of making divisive comments about Muslim people — looks set to win another term as the head of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.
Yogi, as he's known in India, is the head of a Hindu temple known for its hardline traditions. He's also built a youth group aimed at getting revenge on "historic wrongs" by Muslim rulers.
He is the first holy man to gain so much power in India, rising through the ranks of the country's government while being personally supported by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Researchers have said his political rise represents a worrying trend of a new and assertive brand of Hindu nationalism leading to Muslim persecution in the world's largest democracy.
At a political rally in Uttar Pradesh where Modi was out campaigning for Yogi in the lead-up to the election, supporters said they appreciated the government's focus on "protecting" Hinduism.
"When Yogi and Modi come to power again, Islamic Sharia law will be collapsed, so we don't support Sharia law, we just support the constitution," said Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporter Madugiri Modi, who changed his last name to match the Prime Minister's.
"Yogi and Modi, they aren't human, they are rebirthed as Gods like Krishna and Rama. I worship them and respect them."
"This is the first time Hindus, they know where they stand, they want to come forward now, they have the strength because of Yogi," another supporter said.
Yogi often makes controversial and misleading comments, which his opposers say are polarising the Indian community while emboldening his supporters.
Last year, Yogi claimed Muslims who chose to stay in India after British independence were doing India "no favours".
During the pandemic, Twitter removed a tweet where Yogi compared an Indian opposition party to COVID-19 calling it a "green virus" — green is associated with Islam around the world.
Yogi has even taken aim at Mother Teresa.
"She was part of a conspiracy to convert Hindus to Christianity. Hindus were targeted in the name of doing service and then converted by her," he said in 2016.
"It's a very assertive brand of Hindu nationalism that definitely targets the Muslim minority in very explicit ways. That's his brand of political image," said Dr Manisha Priyam from India's National University for Educational Planning and Administration.
"It's not just the bringing together of religion and politics, it's the bringing together of an assertive and exclusionary view of Hinduism that is mixed with politics."
Eighty per cent of Yogi's state Uttar Pradesh is Hindu and about 20 per cent is Muslim, roughly resembling the makeup of the rest of India.
Despite that Hindu majority, India still has the second-largest Muslim population of any country in the world.
Legislation passed by the BJP has also had a Hindu nationalist focus.
Modi's government has locked down Kashmir, which is the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, and his party campaigned for Islamic religious sites to be replaced with Hindu temples.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has introduced harsher penalties for people who kill the holy cow and longer jail terms for Muslim men accused of converting Hindu women to Islam.
"There were incidents where people had been targeted physically and violently, sometimes leading to the loss of life," Dr Priyam said.
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9 Things to Know About Florida Black Surgeon-General Joseph Ladapo, Who Rejects COVID-19 Shots for Healthy Children
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is drawing national attention after announcing Monday that his state will officially recommend that health officials not give COVID-19 vaccinations to healthy children.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded by criticizing Ladapo for going against Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, saying: “It’s deeply disturbing that there are politicians peddling conspiracy theories out there and casting doubt on vaccinations when it is our best tool against the virus and best tool to prevent even teenagers from being hospitalized.”
Ladapo, a physician and secretary of the Florida Department of Health, said that Florida would become the first state in the country to make such a recommendation against the COVID-19 mandates for children set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In addition to his vaccination guidance, Ladapo has stirred controversy for his stance on masks.
“These things are not saving lives,” the Florida surgeon general told reporters, holding a mask at a March 3 press conference.
“No high quality data says [masks] saved any lives,” Ladapo said. “And it’s a lie, and it needs to stop, and people need to unbelieve it.”
Here are nine things to know about Ladapo.
He was appointed in September as Florida’s surgeon general by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has praised him for a “superb background” and a career that places a “strong emphasis in health policy research.”
He was born in Nigeria and came to the U.S. with his family when he was 5 years old.
His father was a microbiologist and moved the family to the U.S. to continue his studies.
He has an extensive medical background: A graduate of Wake Forest University, he received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
He has taught at the University of Florida and was an associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
He has come under fire for not supporting vaccine mandates in the past. He argues that health is a personal decision and has said that vaccines have “been treated almost like a religion.”
He has advocated that Florida pass a Free Speech of Health Care Practitioners Act to protect medical doctors from censorship by prohibiting medical boards from revoking licenses from or otherwise sanctioning doctors who express dissenting opinions.
He was a decathlete on Wake Forest University’s track and field team and served as team captain.
He and his wife have three young children.
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Elections Bill Passes Florida House, Heads to Governor’s Desk
The Florida House on March 9 approved a voting law package that, among other measures to ensure election integrity, would create a new state office dedicated to preventing, investigating, and solving election-related crimes.
The 76–41 House vote echoed the wishes of the Florida Senate, which voted in favor of the measure five days earlier. Now that 47-page bill, which has been inching its way through the Republican-controlled legislature, is one step closer to becoming law—as one of the first of its kind in the country.
The measure now moves to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it into law.
The legislation would create a 15-person Office of Election Crimes and Security that would be part of the Florida Department of State. The office would investigate allegations of fraud, initiate independent inquiries, and take over the management of the state’s voter fraud hotline. In addition, penalties for organizations violating rules for registering voters would be increased from $1,000 to up to $50,000 per year.
The measure also would require an annual clean-up of lists of active voters, instead of every other year, tighten security on areas where ballots can be dropped off, and boost criminal penalties for fraudulently completing a ballot to a felony from a misdemeanor.
Currently, 36 states are considering 128 bills related to election crimes. The proposals cover a wide range of topics, from harassment of elections officials to the collection of absentee ballots for payment. Those bills and their statuses can be viewed at an elections law database that’s maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In November, DeSantis publicly urged members of the legislature to make the creation of an Office of Election Crimes and Security a priority in their regular session that was still two months away. He also touted a need for the legislation when he presented his annual budget to lawmakers in December.
An analysis prepared for the Florida Senate by the staff of the Committee on Appropriations stated that “in consultation with the executive director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE),” the governor would appoint at least one sworn FDLE special officer “dedicated to the investigation of election laws” in each operational region of the state.
The main office would be based in Tallahassee, with a director appointed by the secretary of state, and employing “nonsworn investigators to conduct any investigations,” the Senate staff summary states.
The bill’s language specifies that it wouldn’t “limit the jurisdiction of any other office or agency of the state empowered by law to investigate, act upon, or dispose of alleged election law violations,” according to staff analysis.
The office would be required to report its findings annually to Florida’s governor, Senate president, and House speaker.
The Florida measure could be one of the first major election-related bills to be enacted this year, in a state where many voters say they believe fraud occurred during the 2020 election. Florida is considered a battleground state, where elections for president, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives can be close. In 2021, voter registrations for Republicans surpassed Democrats for the first time in Florida. But the gap is narrow—less than 68,000 voters.
Opponents of Florida’s legislation have argued that creating a special office looking for voting crimes might make some would-be voters wary of participating in elections. Opponents also have insisted that cheating during elections is rare and doesn’t occur enough to warrant the creation of a new investigative office.
Across the country, election integrity has increasingly become a worry for people on both sides of the aisle. Texas officials revealed this week the discovery of 10,000 uncounted ballots from a primary election in Harris County, home to Houston. Texas is also considered a battleground state, where elections can be close.
In Florida, the Department of State received 262 election fraud complaints in 2020, “and referred 75 to law enforcement or prosecuting authorities,” the department says on its website.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
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1 comment:
An office of election integrity will not be effective unless the office is open to monitoring by all parties.
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