Okay so it's been a while since my last two e-mails but I shall try to
make up for this in these last few weeks of term.
Gianni was asking why we prefer unhealthy food to healthy (speak for
yourself Gianni, although I admit we do seem to be a bit of a junk food
society). I think your own first answer about the EEA not being the
same as it used to be is probably the closest to the truth. In an
environment where sugar was rare (the EEA), having a sweet tooth was
adaptive in that the extra energy buzz it gave enabled our ancestors to
flee from danger to hunt more effectively etc. We still seem to have
this tendency - i.e. we like sweet tasting foods although in our
present day society these are classed as unhealthy since they are in
abundance, raise our already elevating blood sugar levels and rot our
teeth. Too much of a good thing it seems can be detrimental to our
health. Perhaps we could (and only perhaps) extend this idea so it
embraces a tendency for foods that are generally high in calories. It
would seem to be adaptive for those in the EEA to have a tendency to
prefer foods that were high in calories since again such foods were
hardly plentiful enough for them to eat to excess and would provide
extra energy for survival activities, extra body mass or fat for
protection in the winter etc. Maybe, then we still have a tendency to
stuff ourselves with such foods, passed on to us by our surviving
ancestors. However, these foods are now labeled unhealthy since the EEA
has changed and the abundance of such foods together with a more
sedentary lifestyle has meant that a tendency to eat such foods in
place of other 'healthier' alternatives is no longer adaptive.
On to the female orgasm. Is there still a debate as to whether this is
an adaptation or not? If orgasm means that the cervical filter pulls up
more sperm form the seminal pool, then doesn't this aid the
reproductive act by making more sperm available within the woman to aid
contraception. Also, if female orgasm (as Baker has illustrated) can
help favor some copulation over others and can therefore to some extent
be used to help plan contraception, surely this would give females in
the EEA with a tendency to orgasm at appropriate times an edge over
those who do not in that conceiving at the right time and with the
right man (or even conceiving at all if you have only been able to
copulate a few times) gives your offspring a higher chance of
survival.
Also, the only point I was a little concerned about in the last lecture
was that everyone seemed to accept the statement that women need to be
emotionally attached or in a stable relationship to orgasm whereas men
obviously do not. I think that's garbage and if anyone can convince me
otherwise then please attempt to do so.
Finally. I do not quite get this one out of five, one out of two and
one out of five thing about the exams. Okay so we write three
questions. Can someone elaborate on what the topic / reading divisions
are?
Anyway, I hope this all makes sense. I'm typing in a manic hurry as I
have to get to college for our Advanced topics lecture in 5 minutes and
I haven't had a chance to read it back to myself. Oh well, never mind.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Feb 13 2001 - 16:23:09 GMT