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Is what I said really that unclear, gbaji?


Sex organs are for reproduction: True statement. (I never argued against this)

Sex is pleasurable: True statement. (Unless you're bad at it, I suppose)

Human beings have sex for recreational purposes: True statement.

Human beings have sex for recreation, more than they do for reproduction: True statement.

Human beings have no mating season: True statement.



If sex weren't pleasurable, we wouldn't have it for recreational purposes, we'd be driven to it by instinct. Y'know like how sex isn't pleasurable for cats, so they're really only driven to mate by instincts which drive them to mate once a year.

Edited, Jun 27th 2011 6:18pm by Nilatai

Yeah, I can't agree with that. What you're essentially saying is that no organs have a purpose, they're just there and they will do what we ask of them. That's... weird.

Like, our stomach isn't there to digest our food? Our eyes aren't there to see? Our skin's biological function isn't to keep our insides on the inside?

From the completely subjective point of view of humans, those are their purposes.

But biology isn't about human subjectivity. It, as a science, is endeavoring to discuss the natural world objectively. As such, it cannot turn to human ideas of function and purpose, as they are grounded in our subjective ideas about the world.

Do stomachs generally digest food? Of course they do. But to suggest that doing so is their purpose is to suggest that there was a design involved in the creation of a stomach. In reality, the stomach formed merely as a result of natural processes--it wasn't "designed" to digest food, that's just something it does because of the way the organism possessing the stomach interacts with the environment.

My point is that it's fallacious to contribute to that a purpose, which requires intent. An organism might choose to eat, and in so doing choose for their own stomach that primary purpose--that's perfectly fair, because it is acknowledging the subjectivity from the start.

But to claim that it has an objective primary function is wrong.

Let me put it this way, suppose a stomach can either digest food, digest itself, or do nothing.

We say that its primary function is to digest food, because that leads to the health of the animal.

We say that a stomach digesting itself is diseased or stricken with disorder, because that does not contribute to the health of the animal.

We might say that the stomach that does nothing is "dead" or some similar term.

But ALL of these things are chosen because we've subjectively specified one particular end as a good, and are evaluating the stomach in terms of it (the health of the animal).

And that's a serious problem for the integrity of a science, because it not only transposes your personal values onto the subject, but it also declares a sphere of importance for possible functions.

Dude, you were supposed to not get on the gbaji train. The sane train was 2 minutes behind it.

German Pinchers are dominant wolves?

Sooooooo.. what you're saying is that the purpose of our reproductive organs are for reproduction, but the purpose of using them is for pleasure? How does that even makes sense?

People may primarily use them for pleasure, but if the purpose is for reproduction, then the purpose of using them is for reproduction.



You're absolutely correct, but "pleasure" isn't one of them as anything can cause "pleasure". We naturally will have physical/mental feelings towards actions. As I keep mentioning, that's like saying the purpose of taking a dump is for pleasure.

Gah! But can we at least agree that not all purposes/functions are "equal" here? The ones which are necessary for species survival are clearly more important from a biological perspective than those which are not. The fact that we could choose to use our stomaches to store extra golf balls doesn't mean that this is of equal biological importance to the use of our stomachs for digesting/metabolizing food.

Similarly, the fact that we can use our sexual organs for purposes other than reproduction doesn't change the fact that their primary and clearly most important function is for reproduction. I'll point out again for like the 4th time that even the "sex feels good" bit which encourages people to use their sexual organs for things other than reproduction also has a biological function related to reproduction. Get people to have sex more often, and they'll reproduce more often even if they aren't always having sex under conditions which will result in reproduction, much less if their intention when having sex is reproduction.



Sure. No one's arguing that there aren't other things you can do with your genitalia, or even that those other things might not be useful in some way. Can we get past the excluded middle here for a moment? We can sit here and quibble over various meanings of words like natural, normal, function, and purpose all day long, but at the end of the day it does not change the absolute fact that if every member of our species refrains from engaging in heterosexual acts we will die out as a species (we're ignoring artificial insemination of course), while if every member refrains from homosexual acts, the net effect on the species from a biological perspective is zero.


Thus, from a biological perspective one use of our sexual organs is vastly more important than the other. Period. I seem to recall that "reproduction" is one of the defining characteristics of life. So that would seem kinda important relative to "makes us feel good", or "helps maintain social order". Unless the absence of those other things will lead to species extinction, then they do not have the same biological importance. Sheesh!

It's fun to see so much bad science in just a few sentences.

Lol, emotional pleasure is only part of it. For some people, it's a big part. For many people, it's vastly less important than physical pleasure.

Everything that has to do with natural selection is completely and totally related to the organism and environment at the time. It's all equally important. Sexual reproduction is obviously important for evolution, but its way more complex than you are pretending. Homosexuality might very well be extremely beneficial to the overall survival of the species. As might ************* sex for pleasure, etc.

The objective fact is that all of these things is completely subjective to the present situation. We live in a world in which it is fully possible for a gay man to pass on his genes without living in a heterosexual situation (and far easier for a lesbian). Plus, they provide parents for other children, which aids in the survival of the species (which is the level at which evolution usually occurs). My homosexuality might not make it as probable for me to pass on my genes (which would have been improbably either way, since I hate kids), but it might have significant impact on society as a whole, which gives it value subjective to natural selection. And as it is in no small part a function of my sex organs that I desire men (mainly because they produce the hormones that give me sexual desire in the first place), there's no reason for me to claim that my purely recreational sexual interactions with others aren't making the most of my sexual organs.

Oh, and something that is valuable in terms of natural selection benefit is subjectively valuable, by definition. It's false to use it objectively.

But it's clearly not an evolutionary advantage. Y'know, because it exists.

For a long time, science took it as a given that the universe existed with an inherent design. Even if you weren't particularly theistic, there were still ideas that permeated and colored scientific beliefs (like the fact that the circle was the most perfect shape, and therefore everything in nature endeavored to become circular).

Once you do that, you begin to create notions of what is "right" and what is "wrong." In reality, each organism is its own separate entity. An overarching statement like "The reproductive system is primarily for reproduction" is wrong simply because it gives the reproductive system intent. And since the system itself may be part of a larger body, which is influenced by it to not seek sexual relations that might end in children, that's a fundamentally flawed statement when spoken objectively. That's really all I meant.

Biology speaks about functions a lot, but always in a subjective manner. They are always subjective to how they are helping a species to gain an advantage through natural selection.

And that's a really important point, because evolution doesn't function at the organism level--it functions at the level of large groups. Will reproducing directly allow me to pass on my personal genes? Sure. But that doesn't necessarily aid in the health of a species. What science finds in organisms that form family groups is that many social aspects of group life change so that they are not uniform across them all.

For example, consider the lives of solitary animals. They go through mating season, the males fight for females, etc. And nearly every animal of each sex participates in those activities.

In family groups, however, it is often very, VERY different. It's usually a minority of males that are permitted to mate, but those inferior in the ranks are still expected to stay in the family and aid in its survival. But sexual activity is largely based on pure instinct, which suggests that the sexual drives of low ranking males are actually surpressed while they are in their situation.

That's really all I'm getting at. At the end of the day, what we consider "important" out of the list of possible functions really depends on what we are referencing. And if you really follow every thread through, you'll find that maaaaany functions of every organ are so complex in relation to the potential survival of a species, that its really fallacious to claim that one is "primary" even in that subjective situation. And if we are speaking objectively, we shouldn't accept that they have "functions" at all, at least in any way that includes intent in its definition.

It can be if you derail it.