Photo by C Simmons.

A Biologist went down to the coffee shop one day, because the walk out to the edge of the University campus provided some brief respite from the laboratory. Along the way the Biologist encountered an Evolutionary Psychologist, who was also going to the coffee shop, and they fell to walking together.

As they entered the coffee shop, they found it crowded with undergraduates, for it was almost Finals Week. Accordingly, they joined the long queue of prospective customers waiting to place an order. Said the Evolutionary Psychologist to the Biologist, “My dear colleague, do you not see this crowd of fertile young people as I do, engaged in a dance of mate selection and competiton that predates our ancestors’ descent from the trees?”

And the Biologist replied, “I don’t believe that our ancestors had access to steamed milk and espresso. Or free wi-fi.”

“You are being amusingly obtuse!” chortled the Evolutionary Psychologist. “The environment may have changed somewhat since the days of our Darwinian origins, I will allow, but ova remain much dearer than sperm cells.”

“That much is certainly true,” said the Biologist. “But I am not sure how much it matters to the coffee-shop flirtations of undergraduates, almost none of which will result in procreative intercourse.”

“Ah,” said the Evolutionary Psychologist, “Perhaps this is a subject wherein my own field has surpassed the expertise of yours, my dear colleague. For instance, we have recently discovered [PDF] that men are more attracted to unintelligent, inattentive women—precisely what one would expect if men have been naturally selected to seek out easy opportunities for impregnation. And this search is doubtless underway all around us at this very moment.”

“That is a remarkable and possibly misogynistic hypothesis,” said the Biologist. “I am most curious to know how it was tested.”

“O! It was most elegantly done,” said the Evolutionary Psychologist. “Some of my colleagues simply asked a small class of undergraduate psychology students—males, of course—to examine photographs of women which were previously selected for their various appearances of vulnerability, and tell whether the photographs indicated vulnerability to sexual exploitation, suitability for a one-night stand, and suitability for a long-term relationship.”

“I see,” said the Biologist.

“Most surprisingly,” continued the Evolutionary Psychologist, “My colleagues discovered that the young collegiate males felt that women who looked drunk, or were standing in compromising postures, or indicating vulnerability in any of a dozen different ways, were both more vulnerable to sexual assault and more suitable for a brief sexual dalliance—but not more suitable for matrimony.

“So you see, my dear Biologist, it is not we Evolutionary Psychologists, who proposed the hypothesis of sexual exploitability, that are misogynists—the only misogynist here is Natural Selection itself, which confirmed our hypothesis.”

“I must beg your pardon, dear colleague,” said the Biologist, “but I am afraid I do not understand the basis for your conclusion. In order for this discovery to have any bearing on reproductive success, is it not the case that most human reproduction would need to occur via coerced intercourse?”

“I must confess that this seems to be what the data indicate,” replied the Evolutionary Psychologist. “But we must not conclude therefrom that all men are rapists! By no means, dear colleague. I think it is quite plain that this result demonstrates no more then that all men are potential rapists.”

“But I remain perplexed!” said the Biologist. “Surely rape is an inefficient way to reproduce, since babies traditionally require a good deal of care after impregnation, and women have long known how to un-plant unwanted seeds.”

“That,” said the Evolutionary Psychologist, “is an important question to be resolved by additional study! But of course it need only be the case that the occasional coercive impregnation could increase a man’s reproductive success, however slightly, for Natural Selection to grab hold.”

“I suspect,” said the Biologist, “that you attribute greater efficiency to Natural Selection than this evolutionary force truly possesses, my dear colleague. But even if drunken collegiate hook-ups were a viable avenue for procreation, you must concede that there would needs be some genetic basis for the tendency to reproduce in this fashion, if Natural Selection is to act upon it. Do you truly believe this to be the case?”

“What a peculiar question!” exclaimed the Evolutionary Psychologist. “I thought that you Biologists were well aware that, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is quite safe to assume that any and all aspects of human nature have a heritable genetic basis. Would you truly require the demonstration of heritability in order to conclude that an observed trait or behavior is adapted by Natural Selection?”

“Indeed we would,” said the Biologist. “Such a demonstration, in the case of a tendency to sexual coercion, would be considered most remarkable in its own right, in the scholarly journals of my discipline.”

“What a boring and backward discipline you practice!” said the Evolutionary Psychologist. “Truly, it is no wonder that your field has seen no great advance this last half-century, even as we Evolutionary Psychologists dissect the very nature of humanity.”

“Your ambitions,” said the Biologist, “are indeed remarkable.”

At this juncture, the two colleagues found that they had reached the front of the queue, placed their orders, and went their separate ways.◼

References

Goetz, C., Easton, J., Lewis, D., & Buss, D. (2012). Sexual exploitability: Observable cues and their link to sexual attraction. Evolution and Human Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.12.004