PZ Myers. 2004 Aug 23. The Loom is back in business. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/the_loom_is_back_in_business/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, August 23, 2004

The Loom is back in business

Carl Zimmer is posting again, and he's got an interesting and ominous (to certain traditionalists) interpretation of human evolutionary data:

Scientists have proposed that humans have a history of polygyny before (our sperm, for example, looks like the sperm of polygynous apes and monkeys, for example). But with these new DNA results, the Arizona researchers have made a powerful case that polygyny has been common for tens of thousands of years across the Old World. It's possible that polygyny was an open institution for much of that time, or that secret trysts made it a reality that few would acknowledge. What's much less possible is that monogamy has been the status quo for 50,000 years.

A history of human polygyny? Uh-oh. I hope my wife isn't going to tell me now that tradition demands that I share.

Posted by PZ Myers on 08/23 at 03:58 PM
Science • EvoDevo • 0 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. I don't have a reference handy for it, but I once saw the results of a blood typing study done on newborns in the US and Britain in the 1950's. Yup, you guessed it... a totally shocking number of those babies were going to be raised by "fathers" whose blood type excluded them from possibly being the biological parent of the kid.
    #: Posted by covington  on  08/23  at  07:30 PM
  2. There's a reason why Jews trace their lineage based on mothers:

    "Mommy's baby, Daddy's maybe."

    Of course now a father can find out exactly who the father is, which may turn out to be a rather Neat Trick (as Daniel Dennett puts it) for us male homo sapiens... :+)
    #: Posted by  on  08/23  at  10:47 PM
  3. That would explain my son turning out so well!
    #: Posted by  on  08/24  at  12:32 PM
  4. Since animals are overwhelmingly polygynous and the conspicuous exceptions are mostly not particularly humanlike e.g. ravens and some say wolves, why would anyone thing, even briefly that humankind is "naturally" different.
    #: Posted by  on  08/28  at  03:47 PM