An “adaptation” is a process by which an organism changes to become more advantageous to its environment, and the debate between Dawkins and Gould is whether rape is an adaptation that increases male reproductive success or a behavior that is detrimental to the reproduction of the species as a whole.
Adaptation is a basic concept in biology that refers to the process by which organisms change to become more favorable to their environment. Adaptation is one of the most important factors for organisms to survive in their environment. Examples of adaptations include things like changing the color of an animal’s body or having a leg structure that allows it to quickly run away from predators. When most people think of adaptations, they think of changes in body structure and color, but there’s more to it than that. Adaptation is a broad concept that includes not only changes in an organism’s appearance, but also behavioral and physiological changes.
In the book Darwin’s Table, Gould and Dawkins are divided into two teams and debate the question: Is rape an adaptation? In this post, I’ll share my arguments for and against this debate, which was ultimately unsuccessful. The book brings the biological debate to life, delving deeply into the complexity and multilayered nature of adaptation.
In the book, Dawkins’ team strongly argues that rape is an adaptation, while Gould’s team argues that rape is not an adaptation. The Dawkins team argues that rape is an adaptation for male reproduction in a purely scientific sense. Team Gould counters that there is no evidence that rape is an adaptation and that it is a byproduct of human behavior. Gould’s team then criticizes Gould’s team for applying adaptation too easily, and the two teams move away from rape to discuss adaptation in a broader sense.
After watching the debate, Daeik Jang, author of the book Darwin’s Table, argues that rape is an adaptation. He uses the example of obesity to illustrate this point. During the time of hunter-gatherers, food was hard to come by, so humans learned how to make it easier for them to survive and reproduce. And this system was an adaptation. However, with the recent proliferation of high-calorie foods, biological changes have not been able to keep up with the rapid changes in the environment, leading to a disease called obesity. And here the author argues that just as obesity, as an adaptation, is not inevitable, rape is not inevitable. He also argues that rape is an adaptation, not an instinct, and that it can be prevented similarly to obesity. The author stops readers who want to bring up ethics by saying that whether an action is adaptive or not is not the same as whether it is right or wrong, and that nature is not judged by ethical standards.
While I support the argument that rape is adaptive, I want to clarify that this does not provide ethical justification. The biological concept of adaptation is descriptive, not prescriptive, so just because a behavior is adaptive does not mean it should be socially acceptable. Society should regulate behavior through ethical standards and legal frameworks that are independent of biological adaptations.
Like the author, I believe that rape is an adaptation. In this article, I will focus on rape and reproduction, exploring the relationship between the two. Here’s why I think rape is an adaptation. First, let’s start with the bottom line: rape increases men’s chances of reproductive success. According to a professor at Stanford University, semen from raped men has higher levels of antibody-forming hormones than semen from other men. This causes the woman’s follicles to become more stimulated and release more hormones that induce ovulation, increasing the chances of sperm and egg fertilization. As a result, the chances of conception are more than twice as high with rape as with consensual sex between a woman and a man. This is conclusive evidence that rape is an adaptation for reproduction.
Now let’s hear the other side of the argument. The other side argues that rape is not an adaptation for reproduction in a “species” sense. In terms of species, it’s not just the number of individuals in a species that matters. No matter how large the population is, if there are many individuals with genes that are unfavorable to survival, the species is at risk. In the end, what matters for a species is the quality of its genes. Now, if gene quality is important to a species, does it need inferior genes that are unfavorable to reproduction and need to be raped? Probably not. And they would argue that rape is not an adaptation for reproduction because the species doesn’t need inferior genes.
But should we really be thinking in terms of ‘species’? I don’t think so. Rape is not committed by a species as a whole, but by an individual, so rape should be interpreted in terms of the individual, not the species. While reproduction is often accomplished through consensual sex between a man and a woman, rape can be the most efficient way for an individual to reproduce if he or she is unable to reproduce through normal means. In other words, rape allows the individual to reproduce in a way that he or she would not otherwise be able to, thus passing on his or her genes to future generations and increasing the chances of the species surviving. This has the advantage of increasing the quantity of reproduction while decreasing the quality of reproduction.
The other side will try to talk about the woman’s position. Women face many problems when they are raped. First of all, the woman gets an unwanted pregnancy and has to suffer through a long gestation period. During that time, she has to endure the pain on her own, and after the child is born, she has to raise it on her own, or worse, abandon it. In the end, this is a tremendous amount of pain for the woman. Furthermore, reproduction through rape creates problems after the child is born. In the past, children born from rape were often starved to death or abandoned. In other words, rape increases the chances of conception, but it doesn’t ensure that there will be many offspring.
I don’t think this argument is logical. First of all, while it may not be ethically correct, men are the givers and women are the takers when it comes to reproduction. In the end, it is the male that is important for reproduction. The woman’s pain and harm is not taken into account because it is important to the male who is in charge of reproduction to increase the chances of reproduction, whether she is the victim or not. Also, the child’s chances of survival are less relevant. Rape is often used by men who are unable to reproduce through normal means. For them, the child’s chances of survival don’t matter. They can’t easily pass on their genes to the next generation without rape. In the end, they need to pass on their genes to the next generation, even if the child’s chances of survival are low, and that’s why they choose rape to reproduce.
So far, we’ve focused on reproduction and debated whether rape is an adaptation. The proponents argue that rape is an adaptation because it increases the chances of reproduction. However, the opposition argues that rape is detrimental to reproduction from a species perspective, as the species does not want to pass on inferior genes. The proponents argue that rape is for the individual, not the species, and that it is an effective way for men who are unable to reproduce through normal means to pass on their genes to their offspring. The opposition points out that rape is not at all personal for women, and that rape does not increase the chances of survival of the child. However, the proponents end the debate by talking about the roles of men and women again and emphasizing the importance of rape for less-than-ordinary men.
To summarize, the pro-choice side argues that rape is an efficient way to reproduce on an individual level, and the anti-choice side argues that rape is an inefficient way to reproduce on a species level, making genes inferior. However, this debate has made me more convinced that it is logical to view rape from the perspective of the individual and that rape is an adaptation.
