Evolution and Human Sexuality
May 27, 2010
Is it possible that human beings could evolve into beings that reproduce, but not sexually? If not, why? If so, what would be the ramifications for culture, society, ethics, love, and self-understanding?
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It would be a good thing. Most people think that it would make for a far more hedonistic, orgy-ridden society, but not for folks of my own and Lord Chesterfield’s persuasion:
The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
Anything is possible biologically.
But the rupture between men and women would be bridged in some other way.
Analogy: a linguistic anthropologist friend of mine told me that the German language adapted itself to the innate psychological distance that seems to be part of the “German temperament” (his words not mine, leave me out of this) — the German language took on phonemes of endearment like “-ling” and “-lein” – so that a little girl named Robin might be referred to affectionately as “Robilein”.
The bond between men and women won’t break. How it’s propagated in culture could go all sorts of ways.
Be not afraid.
Kyle:
This has been the topic of countless dystopian science fiction novels. Possibly Huxley’s “Brave New World” was the first. The existence of science fiction stories shows the range of human imagination and what we “could evolve into.” It proves nothing about what will happen, or the range of consequences.
Jeff:
As it happens, I grew up speaking German and my wife grew up speaking Spanish. Both languages use diminutive forms to express endearment, even toward a spouse or someone of equal age. They are more often used by men addressing women. English-speaking men are also likely to refer to their partners as “the little lady” and speakers of either sex may call their partners “sweetie,” “babe” or “baby.”
I wonder if these forms of expression are echoes of sexism, unmoored from their original purpose of reminding females they are the weaker sex.
If you mean “evolve” in the scientific sense, the answer is pretty clearly: No. You simply don’t see a population which primarily reproduces sexually turning into a population which primarily reproduces asexually — among other things because sexual reproduction is genetically much more advantageous than asexual reproduction.
If you mean achieve the technology to reproduce asexually by some artificial means (such as cloning) and do so easily enough it becomes the primary mode of reproduction: I suppose one could posit this, but it very unlikely that humans would actually go this way.
Also a note worth keeping in mind if you want a science fictional imagining of the former: asexually reproducing species do not have males and females, so there’s really no point in talking about how men and women would interact if humans became an asexually reproducing species. The only point of having males and females is to sexually reproduce.
Interesting question. I am just about to get started on Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness.
I am intrigued by Darwin’s view of the world in which everything is closed, settled, final. He probably doesn’t think it’ll ever be possible to carry his music collection around in his pocket either.
I have in mind the scientific sense of evolution. I wonder, for example, how humanity, if entirely asexual, would understand the Trinity, which we understand through the language of “father” and “son.” How would such beings understand the sexual language of the bible? Talk about an exercise in alterity!
I would think that an asexual humanity would have to come up with a whole new framework for understanding God. I would imagine that this new framework wouldn’t have concepts like “Father” and “Son” in it anymore. It’s not that God would stop BEING the Father; it’s more that the term “Father” would cease to have any meaning and so humanity would stop using it as a term to try to understand God better.
So I’d imagine that the Bible, theology as we understand it, and even the structure of the Church would all be swept away, in favor of a new system which would be intelligible to asexual human beings (and probably ONLY intelligible to them).
“I wonder, for example, how humanity, if entirely asexual, would understand the Trinity, which we understand through the language of “father” and “son.” How would such beings understand the sexual language of the bible?”
:) I attend mass in a rather progressive parish –
after years of exposure to not that infrequent ‘Mother creator of the earth’ I have to say I feel some of us voluntary (or not) are a bit down the path towards neutral territory already.
I have to say that I personally do not particular care for the gender neutral all PC peaceful touchy feely mediocre feel it creates in my mind. As my son remarked – Papa peace is so boring – too much of a good thing perhaps.
I would hate to see the kind of gender neutral world you inquire about and I am looking forward to continue a lifetime of viperous interaction between strong male and female characters.
LOL ups vigorous
I don’t suppose that the circumstance of Jesus not having been the result of a human sex act has any bearing on this discussion?
I am intrigued by Darwin’s view of the world in which everything is closed, settled, final. He probably doesn’t think it’ll ever be possible to carry his music collection around in his pocket either.
Huh?
I certainly don’t think that everything is closed, settled, and final, it’s just I’m pretty sure that given a knowledge of how evolution works, the idea of humans evolving to reproduce asexually doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
There are some vertebrates that reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis (a female’s eggs grow to a mature individual without ever being fertilized) part of the time, usually in a situation where males are unavailable. Some varieties of sharks and lizards (including Komodo Dragons) do this when isolated from males, as do a few kinds of birds. The really interesting case is the New Mexico Whiptail lizard, an all-female species (believed to be the result of hybridizing between two closely related species) which is composed entirely of females reproducing through parthenogenesis. (Depending on how the chromosomes of a species work, parthenogenesis will result in either all female or all male offspring.)
As I recall, most mammals (including humans) have some genetic characteristics which make it impossible for parthenegenically conceived individuals to survive beyond the earliest stages of development — though I could be wrong. I’d have to look it up and do some reading.
The reason I’d argue it why this simply wouldn’t happen in evolutionary terms is that sexual reproduction is a highly adaptive characteristic. It results in much greater genetic diversity, which allows much faster adaptation, greater resistance to disease, etc. (Plus it’s kind of fun…) So speculating about humans evolving to reproduce asexually would be like speculating that we might evolve to only have one leg — it assumes discarding a highly adaptive feature for a far less functional one. Which just doesn’t make sense within the framework of how evolution functions.
Though, of course, the idea of humans having the ability to reproduce by parthenogenesis has been played with in a number of science fiction stories, including some classic feminist SF.
I have in mind the scientific sense of evolution. I wonder, for example, how humanity, if entirely asexual, would understand the Trinity, which we understand through the language of “father” and “son.” How would such beings understand the sexual language of the bible? Talk about an exercise in alterity!
Of course, since you’re being science fictional anyway, why not speculate as to how God would reveal himself to an asexually reproducing species…?
Enjoying building up complex mental puzzles, back in the day, I wrote a couple stories centering around a pair of sentient species which had a parasitic relationship (the one had to lay its eggs in a living member of the other) and spent a bunch of time trying to figure out what a “true” religion would look like on such a world…
It is not that humans are unable to reproduce sexually in Brave New World. It is that “civilized” people wouldn’t dream of doing so.
I find it difficult to imagine human beings evolving so drastically that reproduction becomes asexual (although who knows what humans will be like in a million years, if we last that long). But it is certainly not difficult to imagine intelligent life that does not reproduce sexually. And I think there will be machine intelligences some day that humans will be forced to recognize as persons.
The reason I’d argue it why this simply wouldn’t happen in evolutionary terms is that sexual reproduction is a highly adaptive characteristic. It results in much greater genetic diversity, which allows much faster adaptation, greater resistance to disease, etc.
That makes sense, Darwin. Would you say that the evolution I am imagining couldn’t possibly happen or almost certainly wouldn’t happen?
My first thought was of something I read once in Rahner. He said that if humans ever evolved beyond the desire for God they would have simply stopped being humans.
I think that basic principle applies here. Something as significant as means of reproduction is generally enough to distinguish one species from another. By definition, then, humans will never (biologically) reproduce asexually. (Technologically is a whole different question. We might do that next week.) Something descended from us, on the other hand, might, at least theoretically. In any case, I think that Darwin gives good reasons why this is unlikely.
If you mean “evolve” in the scientific sense, the answer is pretty clearly: No. You simply don’t see a population which primarily reproduces sexually turning into a population which primarily reproduces asexually — among other things because sexual reproduction is genetically much more advantageous than asexual reproduction.
If you mean achieve the technology to reproduce asexually by some artificial means (such as cloning) and do so easily enough it becomes the primary mode of reproduction: I suppose one could posit this, but it very unlikely that humans would actually go this way.
You seem to be right about the first scenario. The second scenario is debatable. What about something in between? That, to me, seems the most likely: that we would come up with some kind of technological means (genetics?) to make changes to how (some?) people reproduce. It would not necessarily be wholly artificial, though. Somewhere in between.
Just to clarify, I am not particularly in favor of tampering with human sexuality and reproduction. But I would not be so quick to say “that would never happen” based on the fact that it would muck up what we think being human is all about. “Being human” seems to have an openness to it.
Is biology really separable from technology when defining that which is “human?”
My first gut reaction to the post was to think “silly question, because humanity is, by definition, a species of beings who are male and female and who reproduce sexually.”
But that is a short-sighted reaction on my part. I liked what DawrinCatholic and David Nickol had to say, that it is not difficult to imagine an intelligent being that does not reproduce sexually. A la CS Lewis’s Space Trilogy, it is interesting to think how God would reveal Himself to asexually reproducing intelligent beings.
And that made me think of angels (sorry, Mr. Iafrate :)). Angels are intelligent beings who do not reproduce sexually (and, accordingly, are not male and female). How does God reveal Himself and His life as a Trinity to them?
Or, Kyle, maybe your question applies to human life in Heaven. There, humans will no longer be beings who reproduce sexually. Will the language of “Father” and “Son” and “the sexual language of the Bible” be relevant there?
Our understanding of God and how the three Persons relate to one another is extremely imperfect, and is so very deficient when compared to the way God actually is (and the way angels and the souls in Heaven understand Him).
God revealed Himself to the inspired Bible authors and to us in “sexual language” because humans are sexual beings. If humans were asexual beings, God would have revealed Himself in terms that best approximates the relationships that asexual beings have with one another. Who God is, how the Three Persons interact, how God loves created beings, etc. has nothing to do with sex or sexual differences. It’s just the best approximation that we can understand here on earth.
Kyle,
Couldn’t possibly is not the sort of thing that science is very good at establishing, but there are a couple major obstacles if we’re talking about biological evolution. Given that no other mammalian species has developed the ability to procreate asexually, and that virtually no vertibrates do this as their sole means of reproduction (weird exceptions like the hybrid species, female-only Whiptales being the exception) I think we could be about as sure that this would never happen to humans as we can be of anything, biologically speaking.
Michael,
Far be it from me to discount the oddities that humans will, in the future, seek to impose on themselves.
I find it hard to imagine why exactly humans would seek (other than the already ongoing efforts to get eggs to spontaneously develop into single parent embryos for the purpose of harvesting stem cells) asexual reproduction of the sort that is found in nature. That would mean women going through nine months of pregnancy to bear and offspring which had only one biological parent (her). I suppose anything is possible, but if someone were to appeal to people, I would imagine it would more be the Brave New World scenario of children being incubated artificially rather than carried through pregnancy. Given our genetic make-up, this would still involve a genetic father and mother (or cloning).
I guess when I say I don’t see it becoming common, it’s basically that since we clearly have the equipment to reproduce the normal way built in, and it’s comparatively cheap and easy, I find it hard to imagine a major portion of the human population seeking to do things another way, just from a resource point of view.
Of course, if you want real science fictional material, if you want to imagine a genetic modification of humans that would allow the people to reproduce truly asexually (without a male and female genetic contributor as “parents”), this would probably involve enough genetic change to make the descendants of that line be genetically incompatible with natural humans: speciation. Having an artificially created human species running around next to the natural linneage gives you all sorts of opportunity for interesting science fiction scenarios. (Though given how well humans have dealt with natural diversity, I can’t exactly immagine it going well.)
It would make a great episode in the Twilight Zone.
The question in my mind is whether people here believe that God created human beings in some way analogous to “himself” such that “he” intended for similes and metaphors about “himself” as father to reflect reality, or whether the metaphors and similes are human inventions that would have absolutely no meaning to other intelligent life forms for which there is no such thing as fatherhood. The same question would apply to other metaphors, such as kingship. Thales, as I understand him, is saying that the metaphors are purely human inventions.
David,
No, the metaphors are not purely human inventions, because the metaphors are ones that God Himself uses (eg, Jesus calls Himself “the Son” and calls the 1st person of the Trinity “Father”). I’m just saying that this sexual metaphor is in no way dependent on God’s true nature, since God is not a sexual being in any way. God, being all-powerful, can create and has created non-sexual intelligent beings like angels, and I would assume that He has revealed Himself to them without the need of the sexual metaphors that He uses with humans.
God created humans in His image and likeness, so I suppose it can be said that humans are in some way “analogous” to Himself. I think it is fair to say that God intended the metaphors about Himself to reflect reality about Himself (eg, about His love, about the relationship between the Trinity, etc.). To us, who are sexual beings, the sexual metaphors are the best way (yet still extremely imperfect) for God to teach us about Himself.
The thing is, angels do not reproduce at all, so not sure how that would be analogous – presumably, we would still reproduce, just not sexually. Also, they enjoy the beatific vision, so the need for revelation of God is quite different.