Things that separate us from other animals

[cthulu2016]

Our intellect and very complex language instinct are well known stand-out traits in the animal kingdom. Our dexterity is unusual in its flexibility for novel tasks. And our vision is far and away the best of any animal. (Some creatures exceed our vision in narrow particulars like picking out movement in a random field, like hawks, or seeing well in the dark, but our overall vision package—light/dark, color, resolution, binocularity, motion—is incredible. Consider that the wad of brain tissue we use to process images is bigger than most animal brains in their entirety.)

What would surprise most people, however, is how uniquely sexual we are.

We do not have a "heat" period. Ovulation is disguised, even from the woman herself. Sex is often sought for pleasure. The human female orgasm is waaaay anomalous. Sex does not usually lead to conception, and seems designed not to.

Bonobo chimpanzees share some of our atypical sexuality (as one would expect from their closest relatives) but far from all.

And our unusually complex and self-directed sexuality is prerequisite to our huge brains. Our brains did not evolve to make us rulers of the globe. Our brains were this big long before we figured out what we could do with them. Our brains could not have been adaptive when they exploded in size and complexity. No amount of cleverness compensates for a nine-month gestation period and 5-10 years of dependent infancy. (You don't see any other animals carrying toddlers around for years.) And whatever benefit there is in being able to make a fire wasn't in play during the eons we kept finding out how ridiculously large a head we could give birth to with a decent chance of survival.

Like the antlers of the Irish elk or the tail of the peacock, our brains could not sensibly have evolved to adapt to our environment and are thus marked as the sort of unusual, gaudy, impractical and burdensome feature that can only develop from sex-selected traits—traits with a direct bearing on getting laid. (My theory is that singing preceded speech (as a sexual attraction/competition behavior) and became a runaway sex-selection trait, and our wildly complex breath control and lips and tongue were later turned to linguistic use because they were there.)

Our unusual sexuality is part and parcel of being human and of how we became human. Yes, it's a conservative nightmare. And our sexuality is subject to so much social control because it is central to us... there is no controlling humans without controlling sexuality. (Say what one will about Freud, but his emphasis on sex on psycholgy was, by itself, enough to put him with Darwin and Marx in the triumverate of late 19th century thinkers who changed everything.)

Nature created us with the unusual ability and drive to seek and enjoy non-procreative sex... even to the eventual point of seeking sex while actively blocking conception. It's an oddity.

Human being: the animal that thinks sex is fun.

And that just drives some folks crazy!

[Demeter]

1. Fences

[dipsydoodle]

2. Probably only the gene which allows speech.

.

[atreides1]

3. Opposable thumbs?

[cthulu2016]

5. Raccoons are pretty clever with their hands

Our dexterity is impressive, but in evolutionary terms that sort of physical thing can develop very fast. If it were so useful a lot of animals would have it.

An opposable thumb is only useful if you can think of things to do with it -- to be in the habit of manipulating the environment and using objects as tools.

A surplus of brain hardware has to preceed most of our special traits -- the power to control dextrous hands, to speak with versitile toungues and diaphragms, to process a glut of visual input, etc..

Any wherever we see a trait so wild and energy-hogging that it couldn't have evolved only for the practical good it does in survival then we are looking at a sex-selected trait.

If all human females wanted to mate only with the tallest male in the tribal unit we would soon he a race of nine-foot tall cripples whose circulatory systems could barely pump blood to the brain and whose joints collapsed under the strain.

In the rush of a ex-selected runaway trait there's no time to differentiate the sexes... men and women would both get taller very, very fast.

But even such a non-viable, hobbled creature would pass along his and her genes if that was the main basis for selection in reproduction.

In our case, we developed mortality in childbirth and endless childhood and total infantile dependency for some reason, and it had to be sexual.

(One of the biggest factors in how easy it is for a species to become extinct is gestaion and maturation... the replacement rate. Ours is ridiculously slow, for our size.)

[FSogol]

13. Nah, Single Malt Scotch

[WingDinger]

4. The main difference is, our preoccupation with future. Dread, worry, fear.

Much of our higher abilities, are due to planning, and our fear of future, resulting in the NEED to understand cause and effect.

Oh, and sex is the moment we allow ourselves to think only of the moment. And not the next nine months. Or ever.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. An oversized ego that tells us that we're more than just another species.

And, that despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there's a deity that cares about us more than anything and will let us live forever..if we go against our "animal" instincts.

[Speck Tater]

7. Most importantly, humans are not afraid of the vacuum cleaner. nt

[cthulu2016]

9. Speak for yourself!

Funny story... a girl I knew called in the middle of the night saying a raccoon was in her pantry tearing into all her food. I suggested she open the back door (for an exit) and turn on the vacuum cleaner, reasoning that the raccoon would be afraid and run outside.

She put down the phone and I heard a big ruckus. Then she came back to the phone in tears saying, "Now the raccoon is attacking the vacuum cleaner!"

Animal control was called and eventually lassooed the critter.

[HopeHoops]

8. Just one major one - we fuck up the environment.

[mikeiddy]

11. or as my dad used to say, man is the only animal that shits in its own nest (nt)

[HopeHoops]

15. Not technically true, but I get the point.

[Worried senior]

10. We're meaner.

[Fumesucker]

12. The Ability to Swing..

[lapislzi]

14. Gametes.

A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.

I wish I had thought of that, but it was Heinlein. Whom I still revere despite his right turn into libertarian idiocy.

[madokie]

16. I don't just think its fun

I have fun doing it
When you look at all the different species I think you will find oddities among most of them.

[FarCenter]

17. Humans lack a baculum

[cthulu2016]

19. Yes, but neither do horses, rhinos, whales...

elephants and most other creatures a man might like to be "hung like."

It is an interesting question, though.

The human penis is ridiculously over-sized for its function (much larger than a gorilla's, for instance) and it most likely an adornment, though whether for sex appeal to females or competitive show for men is certainly debatable.

Like the human female breast, the penis is always on display and in a way irrelevant to its function. So the shrinking-away of the baculum was probably a sex-selected trait having to do with flaccid length.

Other might argue that human erectile dysfunction is a fitness selector, and probably a good one in that so many things can prevent proper erection -- circulatory disease, blood pressure, diabetes, stress, etc.. But I take a somewhat limited view of such arguments. (Like those who argue the peacck's tail is good evidence of being free of parasites, which is true and makes sense from the old species-view perspective but is hard to game out from a modern selfish gene perspective.)

[loyalsister]

18. Sexuality, religion, art, and SOCIALISM

Human socialism is also a piece of that. Rather than peacock feathers we created jewelry, masks, make up, etc. We developed stories and rituals and common moral codes to help us get along.

The fact that we can do more is largely what requires longer parenting. We have learned language and social skills from parents\communities even early on. All facilitated tribal groups of people helping each other survive in hostile environments. "It takes a village" has early roots. Imagine caring for a curious toddler in a risky environment with no rules. It has long been beneficial for humans to cooperate and collaborate.

Thus the grandmother theory. One theory regarding the fact that females live beyond the ability to reproduce endorses is that grandmothers play a key role in nurturing children. Another thought is that it is not adaptive because caring for older members of the group is a strain on resources. What it means to live long now and in prehistoric times has very different meaning so it is debatable. For more see literature by Helen Fisher.

She suggests that continuum model of human sexual behavior is adaptive.
I would suspect that throughout history it has been natural for both sexes have extended periods of time with each other. Having sexual bonds would be beneficial if they needed to cooperate.