From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jan 15 2002 - 04:18:40 MST
[Bill 2] I'll mention some more of the specifics I remember just to clear
some things up:
[Bill 2] Yes, I thought I made it clear that it was the lack of sense of
smell in the first sentence.
[Hermit 2] I was only commenting on the bit about it being due to "Women
have learned over the millennia to hide their cycle from the males." and was
replying that while I don't know that it has remained constant it definitely
is currently at the same level as our Chimp cousins. Sorry for the
confusion.
[Bill 2] 1> It is also the fact that to get a really good wiff - your head
would need to be located at ass height. Obviously aside from the poor smell,
the nose is poorly loacted, in most cases, for a really good wiff.
[Hermit 2] Excellent point. I would note that with some women it is still
possible to "taste" (metallic) or "feel" (stickier) ovulation due to changes
in the mucous - but it should be noted that gynecologists refer to women who
rely on this method to avoid conception "mothers".
[Bill 2] 2> At the time when people were developing into people, we seldom
lived that long (40 years)
[Hermit 2] Agreed. At 70k in Georgia (current UniTblisi research recently
reported in "Science" (perhaps in October or November 2001) for all the
following), it seems that we lived an average of around 27 years (evidence
of ear drums and tooth enamel). We do not know when oestrous began at that
time, as this is not a constant. For example, the age in the Western world
has declined by around 3 months per decade since the 1830s. This may be
related to nutrition, in which case we have a very elegant population
control mechanism, with a very rapid control cycle. But I cited the numbers
because they are current, and which I came across recently.
[Bill 2] - we were lucky to make it to puberty.
[Hermit 2] While there were a lot of younger women who died (probably from
complications with childbirth), making the average lifespan of the examined
females 22 years, most men surviving their first year (where genetic
evidence is spotty (no teeth - which is where we find sufficient active DNA
for grouping) also made it past puberty. In other words, while the neonate
morbidity is unknown, child morbidity appears to have been similar to that
in most modern primitive societies.
[Bill 2] If you lived to 30 you were an old man.
[Hermit 2] Exactly correct. With few or no teeth. If female you were a
barren disease ridden toothless hag. So much for "glorious primitivism."
[Bill 2] So instead of 27 or 28 years of reproductive potential, it was
only a few years, maybe 10 that you were able to reproduce.
[Hermit 2] Due to the question of when oestrous began you may well be
correct. But they seemed to reproduce a lot - and genetics show that they
were highly polyamorous. Most men fathered 7 children, and most women had 3,
which survived until old enough to develop teeth (which implies the same
ratio for neonate mortalities) - and again points to a high maternal death
rate - or possibly lower fertility than projected - bearing in mind that we
measure fertility based on mitochondrial RNA.
[Bill 2] 3> Even if 20 out of 100 got pregnant - at the time we were
developing that would have been a catastrophic % of reproducing women. I
would think anyway. Infant mortality at the time had to be phenominal.
[Hermit 2] The rate I quoted is for monogamous couples. Where the woman
sleeps with a different guy every night, the average fertility would improve
dramatically. Firstly simply because the chance of fertilization are much
higher if sex occurs close to the time of ovulation. Secondly because of the
higher levels of sperm produced under these circumstances. Thirdly because
it addresses two of the three types of infertility:
Monogamous Polygamous Polyandry
Polyamorous
Male infertility (or low fertility) X X
Female infertility X X
Couple infertility X
[Hermit 2] Naturally, Polyamorous relationships suffer from none of the
above disadvantages - and appear to have been the most common relationships
right up to 14,500-6,500 BCE (period of massive climatic change and
distribution change).
[Hermit 2] In any case, at this rate assuming we start with 10,000 breeding
mothers (correct to within an order of magnitude) at the time of the 70k
(+/- 5k catastrophe) and that 1/3 of these are active mothers, that 1/5 of
the active mothers give birth every year, that 1/30 become new eligable
mothers and 1/22 die. (Note I am only tracking mothers and I am using the
breeding rate for modern monogamous couples. The reality would have been
better, which will allow more than account for the infant deaths not tracked
here due to lack of data.)
[Hermit 2] At this rate, the population will double every 33 years or so.
Year Mothers Births Deaths Population
0 3,333 667 455 10,000
1 3,404 681 464 10,212
2 3,476 695 474 10,429
3 3,550 710 484 10,650
4 3,625 725 494 10,876
5 3,702 740 505 11,107
6 3,781 756 516 11,342
7 3,861 772 526 11,583
8 3,943 789 538 11,828
9 4,026 805 549 12,079
10 4,112 822 561 12,336
11 4,199 840 573 12,597
12 4,288 858 585 12,864
13 4,379 876 597 13,137
14 4,472 894 610 13,416
15 4,567 913 623 13,701
16 4,664 933 636 13,991
17 4,763 953 649 14,288
18 4,864 973 663 14,591
19 4,967 993 677 14,901
20 5,072 1,014 692 15,217
21 5,180 1,036 706 15,539
22 5,290 1,058 721 15,869
23 5,402 1,080 737 16,206
24 5,516 1,103 752 16,549
25 5,633 1,127 768 16,900
26 5,753 1,151 784 17,259
27 5,875 1,175 801 17,625
28 6,000 1,200 818 17,999
29 6,127 1,225 835 18,381
30 6,257 1,251 853 18,771
31 6,390 1,278 871 19,169
32 6,525 1,305 890 19,575
33 6,664 1,333 909 19,991
34 6,805 1,361 928 20,415
Using this model, which anticipates a uniform environment without
constraints, and ignores epidemiology, the population will hit 100,000
within 110 years, 1 million in 220 years, 10 million within 330 years and
100 million by 440 years. This is a great deal faster than we managed to
breed, as it seems that we took almost 5000 years to reach the 10 million
mark, so far from a disaster, these numbers are optimistic. Because of
compounding effects, which results in geometric growth, actuarial tables are
very sensitive to miniscule changes and I would hypothesize that the
difference is caused by variations in the "indeterminate" areas, i.e. infant
morbidity, resource constraints, and the unknown age of oestrous.
[Bill 2] 4>I am not positing this as the answer, but a possible one of many
aspects that drove the bus to monogamy.
[Hermit 2] As reflected above, and in the data posted by Blunderov there are
very few drivers to monogamy - and achieving high breeding rates is not one
of them. I explore more in my reply to Blunderov below.
[Blunderov]
Ok, so if polygyny is so great then why do some end up being monogamous?
It's certainly not very common:
Birds- 90% monogamous.
Mammals- under 5% monogamous
Primates- 37/200=~18% monogamous.
(Traditional human societies are about 20% monogamous.)
[Hermit 2] Worth mentioning that in humans and apes, genetic testing proves
that supposed monogamy and "cheating" go together.
===
[Blunderov] I recalled L'Ermit's post of the other day....
"[Hermit -1] Until we became civilized, we lived in a wide variety of
exactly such "family packs" (evidence of burial sites and genetics) even
though we don't know exactly how they were arranged....a reasonably large
population (500 plus) is required to allow line shifts when a negative
hereditable mutation occurs (1 per 2,500 years in a healthy population. 1
per 3 years where the gene line starts out as a sea of recessives - as is
the current case with humans and some endangered species)."
[Blunderov] PS I don't understand the genetics. Why is (the human gene pool)
"a sea of recessives - as is the current case with humans and some
endangered species)."? Is this bad?
[Hermit 2] Negative recessives are extremely bad for the gene line, because
most genetic defects that do not kill the zygote can only be transmitted by
a recessive gene provided by only one parent. When inherited from both, it
is frequently fatal. Or it used to be. One trouble we have is that we don't
cull humans, and where once negative recessives would tend to be self
damping (e.g. cardiac defects are linked to many congenital defects e.g.
porphyria, hemophilia, spinal biphidia etc.) and this tended to act as a
filter to reduce transmission by removing the reinforcing crossings (i.e.
when the recessive was received from both parents the zygote or neonate
died), we now often keep these genetic failures alive, and frequently assist
them to breed. In these circumstances each reinforced recessive carrier
assisted to live and reproduce will pass that recessive on to *all* their
children, meaning that this lifesaving process is causing rapid
deterioration in our gene line. Another cause is the ever increasing age of
mothers and fathers, resulting in an ever increasing probability of
inheritable harmful mutations. As explained above, everyone in the entire
population is a carrier for some harmful recessives and it is purely luck as
to whether they reinforce - and create one of the 40% (up from 20% in the
1950s) of all neonates who express negative congenital factors - or if you
do not have any matching recessives and simply pass the recessives on to
your children so that they can participate in the same lottery when they
start to breed. But as the number of people with negative recessives
continues to increase at ever escalating rates, we greatly increase the odds
of a recessive being matched at every crossing. As we are unlikely to start
culling humans any time soon, we should be using genetic engineering to
identify and where possible remove such negative recessives or refrain from
breeding when they would be reinforced or we may well end up being unable to
breed except with medical assistance. Not a good idea given the demonstrated
fragility of individual species.
[Hermit 2] In the history of man we have frequently almost become "just
another" extinct species. The two most recent population catastrophes show
this very clearly. At around 140 kyears BCE (+/- 10 kyears) we dropped to a
population of about 2,000 from one of several millions. Due to subsequent
line extinctions, we can all trace our ancestry back to 10 male and 18
female protohumans out of that group [Dr Douglas Wallace et al, Emory
University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Reported in Science, June 2000].
Many of those line extinctions took place during the second population
catastrophe at about 70 kyears BCE (+/- 5 kyears) when we dropped to a
population of no more than 100,000 and possibly as few as 1,000 humans
dispersed around the world. In addition to catastrophic line extinctions,
the number of Y chromosomes has a tendency to diminish, a consequence of the
fact that in each generation some men will have no children, or only
daughters, even if the population stays the same size or increases. This,
our common ancestry and the occasions when our numbers have been reduced
means that all descendents of these surviving lines have inherited the same
recessive negative genes from their ancestors, and anytime that a cross
results in phenotype expression due to recessive genes being reinforced, a
genetic flaw, some serious, many less so, becomes apparent. But those born
with reinforced negative recessives which survive to breed pass them on to
all of their children and this becomes a legacy for what were once more
esoteric genetic problems (gene-splits, swaps, drops and repeats) but are
becoming more common. These genetic problems are the reason why naturalists
become agitated when a population drops towards 500 individuals which is
where, statistically, the probability becomes unity that negative recessive
reinforcement will eventually result in the extinction of that species (i.e.
all the members of that species will end up with the same negative
recessives and thus will be unable to breed successfully even if an
apparently successful "rescue" is accomplished).
[Hermit 2] Monogamy and in-line marriages (without culling) are a guaranteed
way to amplify this effect. Which is why, unless we elect to rely on genetic
engineering or adopt stringent culling (which could be implemented as
breeding control programs (eugenics)) we will have to abandon both of these
practices - or decide to become extinct. Of course, the religious will claim
to the end that their gods will rescue us from the consequences of our
idiocy, but I estimate that outcome as having such a low probability as to
be negligible and in any case would have to be a discontinuity, so have not
factored it into the models.
[Hermit 2] Any species that defies evolution is a species on the path to
extinction. And currently, humans are doing far to good a job of nullifying
evolution. What I - and many other genetically aware people - advocate, is
that we switch from moderated Darwinian evolution to deliberate Lamarckian
evolution, using genetic engineering to minimize the obvious problems in our
gene lines, and eventually begin to assist positive expression (e.g. we
already know that IQ is encoded on 3 chromosomes and are narrowing down on
the individual genes, so we should soon (5-15 years) be in a position to
"select" for intelligence. Doing this will allow us to choose any social
structuring we prefer, without concerning ourselves over the genetic
implications.
[Hermit 2] Apropos of something, this is a good reason to pick a partner
from a different "line" to yourself and why the Jews and Indians (Asian),
who both practice, almost exclusively, in-line marriage, have the largest
number of identified genetic negative recessives. What this means in
practice is that if you have a European heritage, you should ideally pick a
partner from the AmerInds, Georgians, Africans or Asians to make healthy
babies (avoid other Europeans, people of European descent, Indians and
Semites). The same principles apply to other origins (including, perhaps
especially, the Semites and Indians, as this implies that 25% of their
children will probably be free of major negative recessives if they follow
this path). The consequences of imagining that your gene line is "special"
are ironic, but not even slightly amusing.
Regards
Hermit
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