Book Review – Darwin’s Table (The Natural History of Rape from an Evolutionary Perspective)

I read and wrote a book review of Darwin’s Table by Korean professor Daeik Jang. It is about the natural history of rape from an evolutionary perspective.

 

As evolutionary theory has developed, there have been many discussions about what is subject to natural selection, and one example of this is the question of whether rape is an adaptation. This was first addressed in Thornhill’s A Natural History of Rape, which was a biological approach to rape. But when it comes to the real question of whether rape is an adaptation, there are conflicting views. The book is presented as a debate between people on both sides of the argument. Dawkins’ team argues that rape is an adaptation, and Gould’s team argues that rape is not an adaptation.
First, let’s look at the arguments in favor of the thesis. The first is that the majority of rape victims are women of childbearing age, which means that men who are unable to mate will turn to rape as a desperate measure to increase their reproductive success. The second rationale is that women of childbearing age are more likely to be victimized by rape than women of non-childbearing age. Finally, Thornhill’s book argues that male rape behavior is an adaptation in humans as well, citing the specific organs that facilitate rape in males.
The arguments against this are as follows. The first argument is that Thornhill’s statistics in The Natural History of Rape on which he relies are weak in terms of the age-specific harms of rape victims. Thornhill claims that the harm is greater for women of childbearing age, but statistical analysis shows that there is no significant difference between victims over 44 years of age (non-childbearing) and victims between 12 and 44 years of age (childbearing) in terms of trauma and harm from the assault. Therefore, Thornhill’s claim lacks support. Second, there is the issue of child sexual assault. Thornhill claims that sexual assaults on children are less harmful than sexual assaults on women of childbearing age based on victim statements, which is not a valid comparison because child victims are less expressive than women of childbearing age. Also, child victims who are not pregnant make up 30% of all rape victims, so there is insufficient evidence in favor of this claim. The third argument is that cases such as male-on-male rape, incest, and child rape are insufficient to explain rape as an adaptation.
After reading and comparing these arguments in the book, I concluded that I disagree with the “rape is adaptation” thesis. Before discussing the evidence, it is important to understand the act of rape. In order to understand this, it is necessary to look at actual cases of rape. In other words, rape is the result of a conflict between sexual desire and value judgments (ethics, moral concepts), where sexual desire is greater. In other words, rape is the result of a conflict between “how much sexual desire a person (individual) has biologically” and “how sensitive and clear-minded a person (individual) is about ethical issues in society (especially about rape). The important thing about this view is that ethics are part of the motivation for rape. This is a point that is made in the book, but an important point in the topic of “Is rape an adaptation” is to take the ethics out of the equation. But what I mean by that is that even if the outcome of the “is rape an adaptation” debate is that it is an adaptation, it’s only in terms of biology and not in terms of being morally evil. So from a purely biological evolutionary point of view, whether it is an adaptation or not is what matters. So from the point of view of the act of rape itself, there may be an ethical component to its motivation, and that doesn’t conflict with the idea in the book that ethical issues should be excluded. So from this perspective, the act of rape is not a result of biology alone, so we cannot treat rape as a biological factor and call it an adaptation.
The next question is whether rape is an adaptation. In the book, there is a section on determining adaptation and byproducts, and the story of the spandrel is used as an analogy. In my opinion, byproducts are inevitable, and I think rape is one of them. First, let me explain that not everything is an adaptation, and that there are many byproducts. Animals are incredibly complex, and there are a lot of interactions going on within them. If everything was the result of adaptation, it would be difficult to explain, for example, diseases. As an example, if we think about the development of the human digestive system, it evolved in such a way that, among other possibilities, it was deemed to be a better trait, so the digestive system in our body is organized as follows: stomach, duodenum, small intestine, and large intestine. The organs evolved in this direction. Diseases such as gastritis, enteritis, etc. that arise from these traits cannot be explained as adaptations. The probability that an individual with a disease would be selected against by natural selection is extremely small. However, it could be argued that the existing evolutionary direction is better, so the disease is an adaptation to that direction. Therefore, evolution can have byproducts, and regardless of the good or bad effects of those byproducts on the individual, if a trait is naturally selected for because it is better suited for survival than another trait, it will evolve in that direction. So not everything is an adaptation, and byproducts can exist. Now we need to look at whether rape is a byproduct or an adaptation. I believe that rape is a byproduct. As I described earlier, the act of rape is a clash of concepts, an “action” that is the result of many different interactions. At the beginning of this thesis, I explained that adaptations are “products of natural selection”. Therefore, in order to determine whether rape is an adaptation, we need to determine whether it is subject to natural selection. However, natural selection only applies to traits. Traits that are naturally selected are passed down through generations and evolve through this process. But rape is not a trait. If we consider the trait of sexual desire, we can treat it as a trait that is directly influenced by traits in terms of hormonal secretions and thus subject to natural selection, but rape is not. Rape is the result of the interaction of many different traits, some biological and some psychological. Therefore, rape cannot be considered a target of natural selection, but rather a byproduct.
One of the arguments against this position is that rape has been a socially problematic behavior for a long time in history. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, it takes a long time for a trait to be naturally selected for and become established. Human history is short in that regard, and there are still countries where rape is legalized today, so it’s unclear how much ethical issues have affected the practice of rape. The bottom line is that there is a very short period of time in the short history of humanity where the ethics of rape have had an impact on human behavior, and therefore it is unlikely to have been subject to natural selection during that time.
However, this argument is not well-founded. If we look at the history of humanity, from Australopithecus, the beginning of our species, to Homo sapiens sapiens, we have undergone many changes in appearance and evolution. One of the main characteristics of humans is that they live in groups, and as they started using tools, they also developed more and more organized social structures. Therefore, the period of time that humans have been living in societies is long enough for evolution to take place. And in terms of whether rape is ethically problematic, we can compare it to animal societies. In animal societies, we often see the leader of the group stopping other members from raping. In this sense, it’s hard to argue that ethics don’t play a role in the practice of rape in human societies as well.
In response to this argument, the proponents may argue that rape is an adaptation, using animal examples in terms of body systems, such as the comparison with animals described above. As described in the book, the subordinate male has organs that facilitate rape, and humans can also argue that rape is an adaptation by comparing it to the fact that the composition of semen during rape makes it more suitable for conception. However, this is not a mechanism solely for the act of rape, given that the composition of semen is altered by psychological factors. Furthermore, the comparison with animals, as described in the opposing position above, is a social comparison. Therefore, it has nothing to do with natural selection and only supports the idea that the act of rape should be considered ethical.
The two sides of the argument about rape being a byproduct can be summarized as follows. On the one hand, there are arguments about the statistics that society uses to support the idea that rape is an adaptation. On the one hand, proponents use statistics from Thornhill’s Natural History of Rape to argue that rape is an adaptation. However, these statistics are meaningless when it comes to the question of whether rape is an adaptation. As I explained earlier, the behavior of rape in the real world cannot be reduced to a single biological factor. It’s a conflict between biology and ethics and morality. The result of this conflict can be that the perpetrator has a large sexual appetite, or it can be that the perpetrator has a relatively small sexual appetite and lacks the ethical concepts to overcome it. Therefore, we cannot draw biological conclusions about whether rape is an adaptation based on statistical analysis of the occurrence of rape, because statistical analysis is an analysis of cause through effect, and if we do not control for one condition in a situation where two conditions are opposed, the analysis becomes meaningless. Thornhill’s use of statistics to prove the hypothesis that rape is biologically adapted is scientifically insufficient, as the ethics of the subjects (perpetrators) in the statistics cannot be controlled for, and their sexuality cannot be controlled for.
The only other argument I can think of for the opposing side is that rape is actually effective for reproduction, and therefore an adaptation. However, I think there is a logical leap here. According to this argument, any behavior that is effective for reproduction and good for survival can be considered an adaptation. For the same reason, then, theft can be an adaptation because it steals something and makes it easier to get it, and murder can be an adaptation because it shows strength within a society by killing, for example. The important thing about this argument is that the object of adaptation is the trait. The whole point of natural selection is that a trait is naturally selected for, so it is a logical leap to argue that a behavior is an adaptation not because the traits that cause it are advantageous for reproduction or survival, but because the behavior itself is advantageous for reproduction. The behavior is a byproduct of the traits, and each factor that contributes to the behavior would need to be examined in detail.
The argument that rape is an adaptation, or subject to natural selection, is significant because it takes a biological approach to the act of rape. However, rape is a behavior that includes a variety of traits, as well as social and ethical factors, and therefore it is difficult to see it as an object of natural selection. In addition, the statistical data presented by the opponents who claim that rape is an adaptation cannot be used as evidence to support the idea that rape is an adaptation because it is a behavior that involves many different factors, and each factor is not controlled for. There is a logical leap in the proponents’ position that explains that a behavior is an adaptation because it is beneficial to survival. The bottom line is that rape is not a trait that has been naturally selected for throughout history. Thornhill’s book discusses the natural history of rape, and ultimately, since rape is not an adaptation, there is no natural history, and in terms of human evolutionary and genetic history, rape is dead.