Sex, Survival and Salvation: Life Through the Lens of Evolution

By Patrick Radcliff

The purposes underlying this writing are twofold: Explain in layman's terms the true development of human existence and behavior; and encourage readers to think about their existence. Because behavior is a product of genetic and environmental influences, it involves the same evolutionary processes that have shaped our physical structure over the preceding seven million years. Over the course of this book, readers will be presented with three sections that cover the greatest influences in shaping humanity – Sex, Survival, and Salvation.

Although this writing contains some information about our physical evolution, it is primarily about the evolution of our behavior. It is behavior, that of others and of ourselves, which is most important in determining how we get through life, whether we are happy, or unhappy. It looks at the most important aspects of human existence through the lens of evolution, principally the evolution of behavior, and the historical development of that behavior. Hopefully, this book will help the reader to make rational life decisions knowing that reality is quite simple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098398255

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Text copyright © 2021 Patrick N. Radcliff.

All rights reserved. It is not legal to publish or recite any part of this writing without express written consent of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-09839-824-8 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-09839-825-5 (eBook)

To the people I have loved and who have loved me,

Peggy, and my children, Patrick, Erin, and Jonathan,

And to

The 20th century journalist, satirist, and social critic H. L. Mencken whose sides, if he were now alive, would be splitting with laughter in contemplation of the American political scene, especially the Republican Party, who in his essay On Being an American, appearing on page 32 of the book The American Scene, edited by Huntington Cairns, Vintage Books, 1982, accurately foretold the arrival of that corsair of democracy—that is, the professional mob-master, the merchant of delusions, the pumper up of popular fears and rages, Donald Trump. It was Mencken who by his example gave me the fortitude to tell it like it is.

Contents

Introduction

Part I: SEX

1 The Basics

2 Boys and Girls Are Different

3 Male Sexuality

4 Female Sexual Behavior

Part II: SURVIVAL

1 Work

2 Defensive Mechanisms

Part III: SALVATION

1 The Benefit of Instruction on Human Evolution and Development

2 Greed

3 Divorce

4 Racism and Otherism

5 War

6 Evolutionary Lessons

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Introduction

Compile all the ideas and opinions which have been offered up during the five thousand years of recorded history on the origin, meaning and purpose of life and sort them into one of two categories: those that are scientifically provable and those that are not. The first category will consist of one idea and all the others will fit neatly into the second. That one verifiable idea is evolution based on natural selection as originally conceived by Darwin and Wallace and subsequently developed by the efforts of countless scientists since Darwin’s publication of the Origin of Species in 1859.

The second category consists mainly of all the religious ideas based on the existence of innumerable imaginary beings such as gods, goddesses, spirits, souls, demons, and other non-human creatures conjured up by the minds of humans, mostly men. To a lesser extent it consists of the philosophical meanderings of humans, again mostly men, justified on the basis of some form of logical analysis, usually involving contrived moral maxims and usually, but not always, buttressed by religious dogma. Aristotle and Plato, for example, never denied the existence of the gods, but merely shunted them aside.

Now, identify which of the two categories of ideas and theories of existence form the basis of reality perceived by nearly all humans, and upon which perception they direct their lives. Obviously, it is the second category and primarily those ideas of a religious nature. Few people live their lives based on Plato’s or Kant’s or any other philosopher’s theory of reality, but most of the world subscribes to some version of religion. Maybe 65-75% of humans are affirmatively and overtly religious with a significant number of others, overcome by the confusion of being unable to reconcile religion’s enticing fictions and promises with the apparent harshness of reality, and wishing to hedge their bets, simply affirm the existence of some god but decline to get into the details.

So, what happens when people lead their lives in accordance with beliefs that are not true, not real? The simple answer is we end up with the world we have—a world filled with killing, rape, misery, hatred, mistrust, confusion, despair, etc., and not a lot of happy faces. We humans, unlike all other life, live in an insane world where reality does not control behavior.

Here is a hypothetical example which combines aspects of various real events: A person, having been so instructed most of his life, believes that God (pick one) is good and that if a person attends church, dutifully prays, and of course, generously tithes, then surely goodness will follow him all the rest of his days. Then, that person learns his son, an altar boy, has been sexually molested by the local priest and that the diocese bishop, his superior, the cardinal, and ultimately the pope, all conspired in suppressing evidence. This situation should have a logical resolution: That person should no longer believe in God and accordingly alter his behavior. However, it doesn’t go that way. Instead, the priest tells him that all his suffering was caused by the Jews, just as they caused the plague of 1346, and the father, needing to express his rage and to reconcile reality with the religious fairy tale, now forms an abiding hatred of Jews, none of whom he has ever met, joins a crusade to Jerusalem, and kills a lot of dark-skinned people, some of whom might have been Jews.

Ok, I got a little carried away in the example, but it’s not that far from the stuff that actually happens and did happen. Some 80,000 European peasants did grab their pitchforks in 1096 and slog 2,000 miles to Jerusalem to battle a foe they had never seen and who had done them no harm, all at the command of god’s representative on earth. You’re maybe thinking, Sure, stuff like that happened in the past, but nowadays people are much more civilized, more intelligent. You would be wrong. Sexual abuse by a religious clergy and suppression of evidence depicted in the example is, unfortunately, an ongoing real event.

Here is a contemporary real example of human insanity: America has a president who paid off a porn-star with $130,000 to keep quiet about a sexual encounter when his wife was giving birth and has openly lied over 30,000 times but is supported in office by the evangelical Christian community and a lot of others who profess to be supporters of family values. Still not a believer? Consider the comment made by Mami Mizutori, UN Secretary General Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction carried by Reuters, Inc., in a 10/20/2020 article. Speaking about the failure of humans to alter their behavior concerning global climate change, a phenomenon according to the overwhelming consensus of reputable climate scientists is attributable in large part to man-made carbon emissions, she stated: It is baffling that we knowingly and willingly continue to sow the seeds of our own destruction. So true.

The purpose underlying this writing is twofold: Explain in layman’s terms the true development of human existence and behavior; and encourage readers to think about their existence. My objective is that eventually humans, through exposure to the truth of objective reality, hopefully obtained in some small part from the ideas contained herein, will come to understand that we live in a rational world of cause and effect-a sane world where behavior should make sense.

Of course, if our world is to be understood as rational and logical, then it must be based upon scientifically acceptable and verifiable facts. Concepts which inhabit common thinking like those of good and evil are simply opinions about facts. Democrats do not support national medical insurance because they are evil people and Republicans do not want to suppress the Black vote because they are evil- racists, perhaps, but not evil. Good and evil are not facts. Likewise, ghosts, gods and goblins are not facts.

Scientifically acceptable and verifiable facts do exist in abundance. They have been discovered and revealed over the millennia of written history by countless scholars and scientists. Unfortunately, these discoveries and scholarly writings have done little to impress the minds and guide the behavior of the typical human because they are not made available in a language understandable by that typical human. These facts and scholarly conclusions are contained in books written by the scholars for other scholars.

For example, I am currently rereading Greed Unbound, Vol. 1, LOCCN#2016901634, 2016, by Mr. Eugene L. Mendonsa, Ph. D., an anthropologist. This excellent book is about the evolution of greed, a subject of tremendous importance in the development of human behavior and in understanding contemporary society and culture. Unfortunately, this book is clearly a scholarly writing intended for other anthropologists, sociologists, and social scientists.

It is my hope to be able to present some of Mr. Mendonsa’s ideas, and those of other experts, as well as my own, in a form that is understandable and interesting to the layman, acknowledging that any potential reader will probably have at least a college education. The reader should first understand that I, myself, am a layman, as later explained. Finally, even though science possesses a wealth of information in the form of skeletons, fossils, DNA, artwork, and other artifacts concerning human existence, this evidence does not, as a lawyer would say, speak for itself. It must be interpreted, and substantial disagreement exists among the experts concerning the meaning of the evidence. On top of this, most of the interpretation in this writing given to these facts is my own. For these reasons, the reader is cautioned to consider what I have written not as gospel, but as reason to explore the subject further and arrive at his/her own conclusions.

Here is an example of the kind of interpretation which is involved: That human females have enlarged breasts relative to other apes is a fact; that the human lineage separated from the ape line approximately seven million years ago is a fact; and that 35,000-year-old carved statuettes exist depicting females with enlarged breasts. The issue is how and why human females came to have enlarged breasts: Were they present when the human line separated from the ape line, or did they evolve, and why? Here’s just a clue because the subject is covered in the book: sexual selection.

This delicate matter merits attention, meaning an examination and interpretation of the facts, because it concerns the male-female relationship in a significant way, and probably nothing is more important to human existence than that relationship. This book, therefore, attempts to similarly examine other important issues of human existence.

The rest of this Introduction is background to this writing. I wrote and published on Kindle in 2016 "Whither Man" with the purpose of describing in layman’s language the evolutionary basis of mankind’s past, present and future existence. I explained that I was by profession a lawyer, without any expertise in the subject matter of evolution, genetics, anthropology, or any biological science, and whose knowledge of the subject had only come from reading a fair number of books on evolution, evolutionary psychology, paleoanthropology, etc.

Although I considered myself a relatively well-read person, I was astonished by what I had learned about our evolutionary journey and realized that the journey and all its experiences is reflected in our present existence and will continue to fashion whatever future existence we may have. I employed a phrase—We are what we were, plus some changes, and we will be what we are, plus some changes—to express this idea.

I further realized that I essentially knew nothing about the subject. My a priori (a fancy word used here to impress the reader) concept of evolution was that a guy named Charles Darwin had discovered that humans were descended from apes, and that’s about it.

I also realized that my life had been changed for the better by what I had learned. I began to understand why I had behaved in certain ways in my past, what my present motivations were, and the motivations impelling all of us to behave in certain ways. I continue to frequently think about past behaviors I would not have engaged in had I known what I learned about evolution.

It occurred to me that if I, now a 74- year-old retired lawyer, could benefit in this way, then everyone could, and it would be much more rewarding to benefit from this knowledge before becoming old. But unfortunately, few people are willing or able to devote the energy and time required to learn about evolution. Even the simplest of literature is rather difficult reading and I have found no book written for the layman, like myself, which attempts to distill evolution’s basic principles—principles which can be lessons for rational living as well as self-fulfillment.

Robert Wright’s book, The Moral Animal (1994) does a pretty good job of rendering evolutionary principles comprehensible to the lay reader. In fact, his Part One: Sex, Romance, and Love, especially Chapter 2: Male and Female, and Chapter 3: Men and Women, is so eerily similar to Part One of this book that one would be tempted to conclude that I simply plagiarized his material. But I didn’t. I did not even come across Wright’s book, which I recommend to the reader, until after this writing was substantially completed. But I feel that his book is still too complex and doesn’t deal frankly with important topics like sex and racism.

So, if no expert would do it, I would, and therefore I have provided you, the reader, something that the world really needs: another self-improvement book. Of course, this one is different, really different, from all those others. Besides being cheap, it’s based on proven science, not the sacred writings of some Buddhist monk, who studied his navel for 40 years, nor the opinions of a fast-talking, slick-looking power guy, who promises the key to vast wealth and eternal happiness.

So, just a word about the science and a disclaimer before I lay out the structure of the book. As I have indicated, what I have to say is based on characteristics of human behavior which have evolved over not only our 300,000 years of existence as Homo sapiens, but also over the millions of years of our pre-human ancestors’ existence. Because behavior is a product of genetic and environmental influences, it involves the same evolutionary processes that have shaped our physical structure over the preceding seven million years after we separated from our ape ancestor.

Although this writing contains some information about our physical evolution, it is primarily about the evolution of our behavior. It is behavior, that of others and of ourselves, which is most important in determining how we get through life, that is, whether we are happy or unhappy. The idea that behavior is genetically influenced is probably difficult for the reader to accept, but I’ll explain it the best I can in the following chapters.

So, obviously, if you are a person who is repulsed by the idea of human evolution and unshakably believes that life is controlled by a bearded man who lives on a cloud in the sky or some other similar deity, you don’t want to read any further, if even you got this far. Although based in evolution, I will avoid scientific or technical discussion of the subject as much as possible. I have already slipped a little by stating that human behavior is an evolved phenomenon, and that means it involves DNA, genes, epigenetics, endocrinology, neurology and all that stuff. But there won’t be much of that.

Now, the disclaimer: This book will not make you rich or powerful or even get you laid. Sorry. It will, however, provide you some tools that allow you to examine your life and it is from the self-knowledge acquired thereby that you can equip yourself to weather life’s storms and to live a satisfying life. Thus, the contents of this book follow the path laid down by the Socratic creed: The unexamined life is not worth living. After reading what I have written, you will be in a position to make a rational decision about whether you want to pursue a life of vast wealth, enormous power, sexual hedonism or a simple existence in the knowledge that reality is basically uncomplicated. Really!

The structure of this book is simple: It is divided into the three parts of the title, Sex, Survival and Salvation, with several chapters under each part. By way of confession, I have to admit that since my real purpose is to impart a knowledge of how evolution has molded and continues to shape our lives, meaning our behavior, the title is a bit of a tease to lure the unsuspecting reader into my trap. We all recognize that the mere mention of the word sex or the idea of sex is sufficient to arouse (a crafty pun) just about everyone’s interest. Why is that? If I had used the word reproduction instead, far less dopamine would flow across the billions of neuron synapses possessed by any potential reader. That’s a little endocrinological humor, meaning, for those of you with little knowledge of endocrinology, like me, there would be less interest in reading the book and my words would have a greater chance of lying unvisited. But, honestly, Part One is about sex, so read on with confidence and lustful anticipation.

Part Two, Survival, discusses how humans go about gathering resources for survival, the stresses created by those activities, and how to survive the resultant stresses. The resource-gathering activities of modern humans are vastly different than those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, which obviously was hunting and gathering, and consist mainly of the activity generically labelled as work. The term includes basically every activity the modern human does for the purpose of obtaining the resources of survival.

Finally, Part Three, Salvation, is not about salvation in the religious sense, meaning it’s not about how one behaves in order to die and then sit eternally at the foot of the bearded-man-who-lives-on-a-cloud. Rather, it pertains to that form of salvation which the dictionary defines as: The act or state of being protected from harm or risk.

The harm or risk Part Three deals with is the physical and mental/emotional distress caused by the chaotic, uncertain existence in which most denizens of the modern world dwell. Physical harm, including ultimately death, has always been a circumstance of all life, down to the simple blade of grass. But our earlier ancestors and the few present-day hunter-gatherers were/are burdened by few of the physical and mental/emotional onslaughts visited upon modern humans. An understanding of our behavioral evolution can lighten those burdens.

PART I:

SEX

Sex is the book’s first subject because it’s the most important part of our existence. That’s a rather startling statement and appears to be contradicted by the obvious need to first survive. However, as used here, sex encompasses not merely the act of copulation, but every aspect of human sexual interaction, including the birth of children. Without children who successfully survive, meaning they live long enough themselves to reproduce, there would be no us. So, it’s kind of like the chicken and egg puzzle as to which is most important, sex or survival, but I’ve led off with sex because it’s catchier.

The first chapter deals with the basics of evolution. An understanding of how the knowledge of evolution is beneficial requires some minimal knowledge of evolution itself. As promised, I have kept it simple and have only included the bare information I believe necessary. This information provides the foundation for understanding all three parts of the book. At the end of Part III are a few evolutionary lessons I believe may be drawn from all the material presented in the book. Chapter Two discusses the evolution of human gender differences and how those differences impact each sex. Chapter Three discuses male sexuality and Chapter Four discusses female sexuality.

Chapter One

The Basics

The Beginning

There are, it seems, only three possible explanations for the existence of life on earth: Each presently existing form of life was made by the Bearded-Man-In-The-Sky sometime in the past, with Christians saying that was about 6,000 years ago, and now exists in the exact, unaltered form of its creation; aliens did it; and finally, accidental organic creation from substances that came to exist on earth, probably around three billion years ago, and the evolution of life over time into its present forms. Neither the god nor the alien theories can explain life’s complexities while evolution, meaning not just change, but change in accordance with the principles of survival through adaptation, perfectly explains these complexities. There are two simple phrases which describe the process of evolution: First, life was an accident, and second, different strokes for different folks (from a popular 60s song by Sly and the Family Stone).

Maybe God, But No Little Green Men

I had a recent discussion with a friend about the issue of creation. He stated that the concept of evolution does not exclude the possibility of a God interjecting Himself/Herself somewhere in the process. (Personal pronouns referring to God are capitalized out of respect for any potential being ((male, female or neuter)) and fear lest that being be in the mold of the Old Testament God, who was known to loose lightning bolts against those who did not show Him the proper respect) This, to me is a logical truism because it is logically possible for a God to have created the whole process of evolution. But there is no reason to limit the abilities of such a God. S/He could have started by first creating the mechanism for creating an expanding