I'm still tempted to answer the thread title with "Who cares?" Argh! Damn! I succumbed to the temptation. /runs away rapidly...
?? Huh? Many traits are not shared by all people but are evolutionarily advantageous. Many women have very wide pelvises that help reduce mortality (both theirs and the baby's) during delivery - but not all women have wide pelvises. Some people are heterozygous for sickle cell anemia, which makes them immune to malaria. Needless to say this would be a big evolutionary advantage, but not all people have that either (partly because being homozygous for it is a problem.) Some people have darker skin that reduces the incidence of skin cancer - but not all.
run away? You better plan on packing up and moving. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! LOL
Unless we are in the world of intelligent design theories traits that 'serve purposes' are accidents.
i know what you mean philisophically but medically we do talk about "purpose" for things. For instance the "purpose" of the lungs is the exchange of gasses, the absorbtion of O2 and the expolsuion of CO2 and some other stuff (for instance alchole is eliminated from the body via the lungs which is why breath tests work). The purpose of the kidneys is the elimination of Nitrogen waste, the regulation of BP and the regulation of salts in the body. Therefore even if you dont belive in god its not wrong to talk about a purpose for bodly funtions.
Not exactly. A mutation that serves the purpose of propagation is accidental in inception, but not in demographic outcome.
I'm just curious being a women, what has ever been the purpose physically for a hymen.:shrug: Its just seems like a cruel joke for women ontop of having to deliver a child through a small opening.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
No, it makes perfect sense. Retrospective/retroactive justifications are artificial, a sign of an ideological agenda.
You're confusing the action of mutation followed by selection with me describing the process. I'm not coming in at the end and saying it was all ok, I'm telling you what produces the theoretical outome. Aren't all our explanations necessary 'retrospective'? We're end observers, not actors.
If you want to marry a man that will only marry a virgin, they come in handy.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Darwinian evolution says just that, does it not? Isn't it just a description of processes processing with no particular 'purpose' whatsoever? You may say that the only underlying purpose of a given mutation is to help a organism avoid extinction but that doesn't seem to always be the case, does it?
Not so: look up spandrel. Or are you discussing terminology? Sure, 'purpose' is a loose use of language. But everyone likes to write 'for' and hates to write 'associated with morphological trait X via random mutation and propagated to moderate frequency via selection'. We just write 'for', or 'purpose'.
Actually it makes perfect sense. According to evolutionary theory ALL traits arise by accident and those that either help the organisms or do not harm them have much better chances of being passed on - iow the organisms with these new traits will perhaps do better or worse. So the options in the OP were not correct: it is not things that served a purpose over here and things that happened by accident in another category. All things that serve purposes in us arose from accidents - mutations.
The OP had a confused set of options.... And what is 'purpose' anyway in a deterministic universe where organisms arise from mutation and natural selection. Function, I can see. Purpose....sounds mythological. Teleological. If not, this would mean that early one when small organisms were gaining traits, this was done via purpose and not accident. Whose purpose? The OP is asking us to choose between purpose and accident. He or she may not have meant purpose in this sense, but once it is given as a mutually exclusive cause from accident, what choice are we left with?
My theory on that is that its to stop amneotic fluid from flowing into the abdominal cavity before your born because unlike the rest of the opernings in the body there is aparently no barrier between the vaginal operning and the abdominal cavity. Side issue i think this is also why its impossible for men to urinate during sex. As for the small hole, the vagina is designed to strech (unlike the male urethra, and i have herd a few cases of men pulling inflated catherders out of that Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) and the g-spot is designed so that as the baby bares down on the cervic, the cervics pushes on the g-spot and stimulates that which causes a rush of endorphins which act as a natural pain relief.
so you believe the hymen's purpose could be to stop amneonic fluid from coming in? reguardless of suppose to stretch most women still tear giving birth. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I do believe there is a purpose to women orgasm. just like men do, only its to receive.