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Most people aren't special. That holds true for dating, as for scientific research or designing skyscrapers or performing profoundly altruistic acts. Without getting too philosophical here, I'd opine that most people are not preternaturally evil, but they are shiftless, unimaginative, timid and guided more by instinct and emotion than anything aspiring to critical thinking.
And yet, we have 7 billion people walking around. Most of them arrived here courtesy of somebody having sex. Most people in fact do pair up, even if they're under 5'4", don't lift weights, don't drive sports cars and exude awkward body language in social situations. Pondering the self-improvement and preparation ostensibly necessary for successful dating, I'm overcome with confusion: if it's THAT complicated, home come most people manage just fine? Most people can't write a decent poem, fix their car, or even file their form-1040 without professional help. And yet they manage to find a mate, become intimate, stay together (at least most of the time), even raise families. The hardest and most daunting tasks are somehow fulfilled, while comparatively simple things, like crafting a sonnet or replacing a stretched timing-chain, are far more rarely accomplished. How can this be?
One can't help concluding that humans successfully mate because, well, they successfully rely on animal instinct. All these sophisticated missives on preparing oneself and wearing proper shoes and slacks, fixing one's teeth, driving a Porsche, learning tango or French or how to play guitar, memorizing pickup lines, scoping out the most favorable nightclub - really, all that we're doing is supplanting with practiced craft what nature intended by instinct! And why so often do we fail? Because instinct is very deep, very difficult to foil or supersede. The artifices of the practiced mind can never contravene practiced nature.
Why the bromide, that "there is someone out there for everyone"? There isn't really. Instead, the supposition goes, that the awkward slouching guy with unsymmetrical face and unshaven cheeks, the one who's too flustered to string two words together, whose socks don't match and whose laces flap about untied - this miscreant of nature will on some fortuitous occasion suddenly not be so awkward, and will suddenly click with some receptive young lady. Not that she's in any sense optimal for him, or he for her, or that some fateful hand has brought them into mutually portentous moment. But that, to abuse the adage, even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut, not from searching the harder or compensating for blindness by acuteness of other senses, but simply by being there. Nature has a way of making this happen. Otherwise there wouldn't be 7 billion of us.
There are "7 billion of us" for a number or reason than simply all men finding it easy to be chosen by a woman. The anti-biotic revolution is one factor I would hazard a guess as to why population growth of humans has grown exponentially since the Industrial Revolution.
I'm not sure I take issue with your post. I don't quite no what to make out of it yet. I like your prose though. And some of your points seem quite sensible.
But given I'm not quite sure what to make out of your post--your observations in general seem pretty good to me--I'm not sure how you reconcile the instincts factor you suggest humans are driven by, and disconnect that human from peacocks. My understanding is that the "human genome" is a bit of a misnomer, that more accurately there is simply a "genome of life," so, if a person is an atheist, they must have some tensions their, philosophically, about how much more unique and un-ape-like humans are from apes or even peacocks. I do realize atheists--like religious theologians--bend over backwards to erect one hypothesis or proposition after another to explain their central beliefs respectively (i.e., man in the image of God for Christians, and man as no more than another animal, possibly inferior in fitness to bacteria for the atheist).
Actually it's funny you mention this, cause usually all the self proclaimed "Alpha Males" are usually just obnoxious azzholes that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with... Real "Alpha Males" types, which I've only met a few are men that get it done, inspire others, and are humble about it. These kind of guys you'd follow into battle, as it were.
Again, if I were so inclined to subscribe labels like such as those......
That sure is the truth, Chow. Those loud, obnoxious, frat boy type guys, those aren't the real alpha males of the world. Those are the quiet, confident, intelligent leaders who you probably have around you every day and you just don't notice, because they don't draw attention to themselves, and don't need to.
Funny thing about trying to find any truly scientific information on the Alpha-beta-omega thing. It doesn't exist. All that comes up on an internet search are blogs by guys trying to sound erudite while twisting the theory to suit their bias. Surprise, surprise.
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Originally Posted by Plzeň
Ha...Yep. Excellent point.
I suspect most the papers published on this stuff are to be found in varying scientific journals related to subject matter written or published.
I've sat through a lecture in a biology class (lecture not lab) on Sexual Selection. The lecture was given by a woman actually. I forget what area of biology she specialized in. Of course, a lecture or even reading short, basic, generalized information of how animals (that includes humans) go about selecting mates does not constitute advanced education and graduate research into the subject. But it provides one enough information to talk about it like the average person talks about "evolution" and mocking creationists. Are subscribers to the Theory of Evolution "bitter" and "full of resentment" given the creationist correctly point out no one has observed descent with modification among a primate species? You're unaware that a basic principle in the natural sciences is repeatability. Meaning, any scientist should be able to conduct an experiment and the results repeat themselves. This is one of the reasons scientists publish their papers in scientific journals. There has not bee a direct observation of descent with modification on the scale scientist suggest explains how Homo sapien sapiens came about let alone repeated experiments demonstrating exactly that.. What there has been are experiments that provide evidence for such evolution (and the fossil records too), but it is really limited to frequencies in gene expression.
Sexual Selection also is a part of the Theory of Evolution.
Dobzhansky first published the title statement, in a slight variation, in a 1964 article in American Zoologist, "Biology, Molecular and Organismic", to assert the importance of organismic biology in response to the challenge of the rising field of molecular biology.
The Theory of Evolution the modern biology student is told, underpins the whole of the science of biology. In other words, everything from homosexuality to heterosexual females choosing mates must be logically, coherently, explained or hypothesized within the framework and justification of the Theory of Evolution.
Did Obama, Hilary Clinton, feminist, tell you that? No, I doubt it, they are usually lawyers or social scientists by education and involved in politics and reprogramming the minds of individuals in populations with respects to social or economic agendas.
And very few of us lay people read science journals of academic standing anyways. It's dry reading and hard to understand for a lot of people (including myself).
But a number of us lay people will reading popular science books marketed towards the laymen and written in laymen terms. Here is such a book I read that kind of got into the Sexual Selection theory.
I suspect most the papers published on this stuff are to be found in varying scientific journals related to subject matter written or published.
I've sat through a lecture in a biology class (lecture not lab) on Sexual Selection. The lecture was given by a woman actually. I forget what area of biology she specialized in. Of course, a lecture or even reading short, basic, generalized information of how animals (that includes humans) go about selecting mates does not constitute advanced education and graduate research into the subject. But it provides one enough information to talk about it like the average person talks about "evolution" and mocking creationists. Are subscribers to the Theory of Evolution "bitter" and "full of resentment" given the creationist correctly point out no one has observed descent with modification among a primate species? You're unaware that a basic principle in the natural sciences is repeatability. Meaning, any scientist should be able to conduct an experiment and the results repeat themselves. This is one of the reasons scientists publish their papers in scientific journals. There has not bee a direct observation of descent with modification on the scale scientist suggest explains how Homo sapien sapiens came about let alone repeated experiments demonstrating exactly that.. What there has been are experiments that provide evidence for such evolution (and the fossil records too), but it is really limited to frequencies in gene expression.
Sexual Selection also is a part of the Theory of Evolution.
The Theory of Evolution the modern biology student is told, underpins the whole of the science of biology. In other words, everything from homosexuality to heterosexual females choosing mates must be logically, coherently, explained or hypothesized within the framework and justification of the Theory of Evolution.
Did Obama, Hilary Clinton, feminist, tell you that? No, I doubt it, they are usually lawyers or social scientists by education and involved in politics and reprogramming the minds of individuals in populations with respects to social or economic agendas.
And very few of us lay people read science journals of academic standing anyways. It's dry reading and hard to understand for a lot of people (including myself).
But a number of us lay people will reading popular science books marketed towards the laymen and written in laymen terms. Here is such a book I read that kind of got into the Sexual Selection theory.
Actually, the bolded isn't entirely true. There's been a flurry of interest in a study done on Tibetan populations that shows that they fairly rapidly (in terms of human evolution) developed an adaptation to high altitudes that allows their blood to carry more oxygen. According to Chinese scientists, this capacity developed over one or two thousand years. Something similar was observed in relation to Peruvian highland Indians generations ago: they developed larger lungs in response to high altitude living. What's noteworthy about the study on Tibetans is that the Chinese say modern Tibetans are relatively recent arrivals to the Himalayas, so the adaptation to the extreme altitude occurred over a known quantity of time.
@ OP... just NO.
When I started working out about 6 years ago I was hoping some attention from the chicks would be a welcome side effect from it.
last year I looked good enough for people to approach me for training tips etc. What you have to realize is that while women think a good build is a nice thing, it's not nearly anything to get you anywhere.
It's like a woman wearing a nice neclace, u think it a nice piece of jewelry, but it doesn't really spark ur interest.
It sparks the interest of the other females a whole lot more, and the other way around the muscles have sparked a whole lot more attention from the dudes than from women for me, and a crapload of people with muscles say the same thing.
If you're working otu to get in better shape, more self confidence whatever I'm all for it, but DON'T build it for women, or you'll get badly dissapointed.
I would say it is entirely true. My key words being "on the scale."
I said:
There has not bee a direct observation of descent with modification on the scale scientist suggest explains how Homo sapien sapiens came about let alone repeated experiments demonstrating exactly that..
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There's been a flurry of interest in a study done on Tibetan populations that shows that they fairly rapidly (in terms of human evolution) developed an adaptation to high altitudes that allows their blood to carry more oxygen.
There is a term for this with respects to oxygen intake but I forget what it is. We were told it in a anthropology course we had that briefly covered this phenomenon of the Tibetans you're talking about.
Quote:
According to Chinese scientists, this capacity developed over one or two thousand years. Something similar was observed in relation to Peruvian highland Indians generations ago: they developed larger lungs in response to high altitude living. What's noteworthy about the study on Tibetans is that the Chinese say modern Tibetans are relatively recent arrivals to the Himalayas, so the adaptation to the extreme altitude occurred over a known quantity of time.
There has been no species change. Unless you're trying to say these people are a different species than you and I an every human that's not Peruvian and Tibetan. That these traits--or any traits--are prevailing within certain population only further strengthens the proposition of Natural Selection. They provide evidence for evolution being the means by which Homo sapiens sapiens came into existence.
However, these pieces of evidence to not prove that Homo sapien sapiens evolved from another species. Nor has this ever been directly observed.
A lot of the Theory of Evolution comes not from direct observation but from inferences. Like are knowledge and currently beliefs about atoms. No one has ever seen one but we believe in their existence and structure from inferences.
Predictability, being able to make predictions, strengths scientific hypotheses and theories too. The Theory of Evolution offers some of this but not much at all. Certainly nothing on the scales of which astronomers can predict the movements and positions of celestial bodies. Nonetheless, we have things like Punnet Squares that allow us some predictive powers through the power of odds. But again, this deals with gene frequency expressions.
No one can predict today some Chimp giving birth to an offspring that is a new species and one that will be similar to Homo sapien sapiens. One can protest all they want. Such a predictive power does not exist. In part because of random mutations.
Basically, most creationist seem to believe in small scale evolutionary changes within a species, so, I doubt many of them would object to your Tibetan example. They object to the idea humans evolved from a different species that was a lower primate, and that we share a common ancestor with chimps.
But like I said, I subscribe to the Theory or Evolution, just like I subscribe to Sexual Selection theory. But both of them have their gaps and weaknesses. Sexual Selection is no more than a sub-theory of the Theory of Evolution anyways.
last year I looked good enough for people to approach me for training tips etc. What you have to realize is that while women think a good build is a nice thing, it's not nearly anything to get you anywhere.
It's like a woman wearing a nice neclace, u think it a nice piece of jewelry, but it doesn't really spark ur interest.
It sparks the interest of the other females a whole lot more, and the other way around the muscles have sparked a whole lot more attention from the dudes than from women for me, ...
Exactly! Without dipping too far into stereotypes, robust musculature seems to impress other weightlifters, and teenage boys. It is far less impressive for women. As with SwedishViking, from time to time I'm also contacted by other fellows in the gym, for workout tips. In some cases the request is genuine, but more often, it's just a way for men to compliment each other about reaching fitness milestones.
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And some of your points seem quite sensible.
