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“Two simulations reach opposing conclusions about why monogamy evolved in primates”

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Here.

The researchers found that mating relationships co-evolved with several behaviours. “When the mating system changed, the behaviour changed,” says Opie. But of all the behaviours, infanticide by rival males was the only one to consistently precede a shift to monogamous mating, they report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. The fear of infanticide alone can be postulated as a cause of monogamy in primates, Opie says; the other behaviours are consequences.

Lukas and Clutton-Brock also ran the analysis on primates only, but unlike Opie and his colleagues, they found no association with infanticide. Clutton-Brock says that the discrepancy could be a result of different ways of categorizing the behaviours. “We clearly must get together with Opie to sort this out,” he says.

Could be an idea.

Opie calls the Cambridge study “interesting and ambitious” and says that his results for primates must be a peculiar subset. He says that his ultimate interest is in probing the origins of human monogamy. “It’s hard work in my experience, so why would so many primates do it?” he asks.

In the case of humans, maybe Someone told them to. 😉

“We’re very cautious about extending our conclusions to humans,” says Clutton-Brock. “Humans are so very unusual because they have culture — and that changes things.”

Well, humans have a sense of the future. That is, we can see that if we do not form long term relationships ( = where people need us far more than we need them), we won’t have them around when we need them but they don’t need us. Last I heard, it was called longevity. Married people live longer.

Comments
It's that time of year in Arkansas when the wolf spiderlings begin to hatch out. The tiny babies climb onto their mother's back and cluster there for a period of several weeks. I saw one such mother wolf spider yesterday going about her business; it is fascinating to watch a marvelous display of maternal care in action. Of course, we have Darwin to thank for granting the spiderlings the inclination to climb onto mom's back, and also we thank the Beard for giving the mom patience and willingness to carry the helpless babies along for a ride. Isn't evolution wonderful in its wise provision and foresight?OldArmy94
July 31, 2013
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OT: Here is the video that militant atheists Jerry Coyne and PZ Myers had censored. Ironically, it is a video denouncing atheistic materialism's stranglehold on science. Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion @ TEDxWhitechapel - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gFi285OhrQ Rupert Sheldrake Censored by TED Conference’s Anonymous Scientific Board Excerpt: It went up on the TEDx website, as these TEDx talks often do, and all was well until it was denounced by two of America’s leading militant skeptics, PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, who didn’t like it because it upset their rather dogmatic materialist worldview. So they called for it to be taken down and they said it discredited itself, etc. They put enormous pressure on TED and then they got armies of their supporters to send emails to TED and put comments on websites. So the TED people backed down. They removed it. http://www.skeptiko.com/rupert-sheldrake-censored/bornagain77
July 30, 2013
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OT: Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head - July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form. Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories. ,,,Dr Matthew Wills said: "This pattern, known as 'early high disparity', turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn't a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.",,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: "Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on. Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: "A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.htmlbornagain77
July 30, 2013
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