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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001851641145319&rtmo=r3mXh3bX&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/3/7/wrape07.html
Outrage as professors claim rape is natural
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
A CLAIM by two "evolutionary
psychologists" that rape is as natural as a
leopard's spots comes under widespread
criticism today.
The "evolutionary psychologists" Craig
Palmer, of the University of Colorado, and
Randy Thornhill, a professor at the
University of New Mexico, argue that rapists
father children. Because these men pass on
their genes by force, any genes favouring
that behaviour are passed to the next
generation, ensuring the persistence of rape,
they claim in A Natural History of Rape, by
MIT Press.
The assertions have prompted furious
opposition from women generally and
feminists in particular, for it argues that sex,
not power, is the motivation for rape. Other
scientists attack the book, claiming that it is
flawed and inflammatory.
The authors of the book are dismissive of the
current belief that rape is driven by power,
violence and dominance rather than sex.
Women who espouse the view that rape is an
act of violence are "scientifically illiterate"
and too emotional to comprehend the
scientific facts objectively, they say.
They write: "We fervently believe that, just as
the leopard's spots and the giraffe's
elongated neck are the results of aeons of
past Darwinian selection, so also is rape.
Human rape arises from men's evolved
machinery for obtaining a high number of
mates in an environment where females
choose mates. If men pursued mating only
within committed relationships, or if women
did not discriminate amongst potential
mates, there would be no rape."
Later this week a review will be published in
the journal Nature written by Drs Jerry
Coyne, of the University of Chicago, and
Andrew Berry, of Harvard University. They
take the book's leading argument and
demonstrate that it rests on a foundation of
untestable "just-so" stories.
They write: "A Natural History of Rape is
advocacy, not science . . . a woefully
incomplete perspective on human
behaviour." The Nature reviewers further
claim that: "Thornhill and Palmer cloak
themselves in the authority of science,
implying that the controversy over their
ideas is purely political, and that the
underlying biology is unimpeachable. This is
a serious misrepresentation."
The book says that rape victims tend to be in
their prime reproductive years, suggesting
that reproduction is central to the rapists'
agenda. "But the data they present contradict
this claim," say the Nature reviewers,
pointing out that a large proportion of rape
victims are under the age of 11.
The book says that married, or young and
fertile women, get overwrought about rape
because they have the greatest interest in
retaining control over their genetic destiny.
Post-menopausal women do not get as
upset, Palmer and Thornhill claim. Thus, "the
psychological pain that rape victims
experience appears to be an evolved defence
against rape."
But a check of the sources by the reviewers
found that the conclusions differed critically.
Women over the age of 44 are just as
traumatised as those aged 12 to 44. "The
authors have used statistical sleight of hand
to buttress their argument," say the
reviewers.
Both sides attack the claim that the book
suggests rape is good because it is natural.
The book's authors stress that: "There is no
connection here between what is biological
or naturally selected and what is morally
right or wrong. To assume a connection is to
commit what is called the naturalistic
fallacy."
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