Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature
Read Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature Online
Authors: David P. Barash
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Science, #21st Century, #Anthropology, #v.5, #Amazon.com, #Retail, #Cultural History, #Cultural Anthropology
DAVID P. BARASH
Evolutionary Puzzles of
Human Nature
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barash, David P.
Homo mysterious : evolutionary puzzles of human nature /
David P. Barash.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-975194-5 (hardback: alk. paper)
1. Human evolution. 2. Social evolution.
3. Evolution (Biology) 4. Sex (Biology)
5. Sociobiology. I. Title.
GN281.B36 2012
303.4—dc23 2011044302
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
TO ISAAC SANDER BOGAISKY, WHO WILL
DOUBTLESS ENCOUNTER MANY DELIGHTFUL
MYSTERIES AS HE GROWS UP, AND WHO
MIGHT EVEN SOLVE A FEW
TWO
Sexual Mysteries I: Menstruation, Concealed Ovulation, and Breasts
THREE
Sexual Mysteries II: Female Orgasm, Menopause, and Men
I thank Abby Gross and Joanna Ng, at Oxford, who contributed mightily (probably more than they know) to this project; my wife, Judith, who tolerated (and contributed to) more diversionary discussions than were reasonable; and the many scientists whose work stimulated this book by asking good questions and seeking ever-better answers. I also thank the students in my University of Washington Honors Arts & Sciences 350 class, who helped me chew over and improve the text.
C
HAPTER
O
NE
In Praise of Mystery: “That’sHow the Light Gets In”
“Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a
different reason: It gives them something to do.”
—
Richard Dawkins
W
E ARE SURROUNDED BY MYSTERIES
. Indeed, mysteries R us. There are more things in human biology than are dreamt of in our philosophy or—more to the point—known by our science. But don’t get the wrong idea, Horatio: Mystery is not the same as mysticism, and
Homo Mysterious
does not refer to some sort of ineffable, spiritualistic claptrap beyond the reach of natural law or human understanding. Just as a “weed” is a plant that hasn’t yet been assigned a value, the mysteries we shall encounter in
Homo Mysterious
—such biological oddities as female orgasm, prominent nonlactating breasts, advanced consciousness, the origins of religious faith, and the making of art—are simply scientific questions waiting for answers.
It was a stroke of brilliance as well as immodesty when our species named itself
Homo sapiens
, usually translated as “man the wise.” A better rendering, however, would probably have been
“the knowing,” since human beings seem more effective at accumulating knowledge than wisdom, although it can be hoped that the former will lead, eventually, to the latter.
In any event, there is no doubt that our collective store of knowledge has been increasing dramatically and that science is largely responsible. At the same time, there is also no doubt that plenty remains to be learned. Although some people gesture toward what has been called “the end of science”—the notion that all the Big Questions have been answered (“mission accomplished” redux), leaving us with mere mopping-up operations—the reality is that there is an awful lot that we still do not know. And ironically, we
Homo sapiens
are both subject and object of much of that unknowing.
“Know thyself”? Easier said than done. Moreover, at the risk of descending into cliché, the more we know, the more we discover how much remains to be learned. Far from discouraging, I hope this will be seen as both a reward for past accomplishments and, no less, a challenge to do more. Who wants to read about a topic when science has already “closed the book” on it? Most books about science are just that: accounts of what has already been learned. This one is different; it’s about mysteries, what we don’t know—yet.
The
Collins International Dictionary
(2003) defines mystery as “an unexplained or inexplicable event, phenomenon, etc.,” which seems reasonable enough … until you think about it. For an event or phenomenon to be
unexplained
is one thing, but to be
inexplicable
is quite another. If something is truly inexplicable, it is beyond the possible reach of human understanding and therefore likely to fit a theological rather than a scientific definition of mystery: something unknowable except through divine revelation, such as how wine is “mysteriously” turned into the literal blood of Christ during the Eucharist.
Let me lay my cards on the table here and now. I do not believe in theological mysteries, or rather, I believe that they are simply ways of clothing meaninglessness in gobbledygook.
Homo Mysterious,
therefore, will not be concerned with the inexplicable, but rather with the unexplained, with things about human beings that are currently unknown but that fall within the potential reach of science. After all, the real world poses genuine mysteries aplenty,
that is, puzzles that are not
yet
susceptible to understanding, but that we can be confident will be brought to heel, sometime in the future.
Science, of course, is in the business of doing just this, answering questions about the natural world,
Homo sapiens
included. And since nature does not disclose its secrets readily, scientists are understandably proud whenever they solve any of its numerous puzzles. As a result, we teach courses, give lectures, and occasionally write books whose goal is to share these triumphs. They are, after all, hard-won and often immensely useful. No one, therefore, should begrudge us taking a victory lap now and then.
But just as “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” (Ecclesiastes 9:11), the cheers of the crowd do not always bespeak that the race is over, or the battle won.
I have been teaching science courses at the college and university level for 40 years and am no less guilty than my colleagues of providing what may well be a misleading perspective on science. Like everyone else, I teach what is known, often at the risk of misleading students into thinking that today’s science is a catalog of established and comprehended facts:
This
is how cells metabolize carbohydrates;
this
is how natural selection works;
this
is how the information encoded in DNA is translated into proteins. The reality, of course, is that we do know quite a bit about how cells metabolize carbohydrates, how natural selection works, and so forth. But another parallel reality is that there is much more that we do
not
know … and very few courses that admit it. One of these days, I will design a course titled something like “What We Don’t Know About Biology,” hoping that my colleagues in chemistry, physics, geology, mathematics, psychology, and the like will join the fun.
But until then, this book will have to do. It is, in a sense, a companion piece to a much more famous publication—or rather, a series of 17 volumes—first published in France between 1751 and 1765 and best known as the
Encyclopédie
, which endeavored to summarize all human knowledge in its 18,000 pages of text, 75,000 different entries, and 20 million words. Its primary editor, Denis Diderot, was one of the heroes of the Enlightenment, and indeed, the
Encyclopédie
represents a culmination of Enlightenment thought, which valued reason, science, and progress—what we know—above all else. Its frontispiece is especially delightful, depicting Truth (surrounded by a bright light, the traditional symbol of the Enlightenment itself) as an attractive young woman being disrobed by Reason and “Natural Philosophy” (i.e., Science). The illustration is more than a bit erotic, as Truth is revealed to be both alluring and accessible, albeit appropriately shy.
