Talk:Steatopygia
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[edit] what are these "nymphae"?
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- The discovery in the caves of the south of France of figures in ivory presenting a remarkable development of the thighs, and even the peculiar prolongation of the nymphae, has been used to support this theory.
Mang 23:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What seems certain
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- What seems certain is that steatopygia in both sexes was fairly widespread among the early races of man.
I feel like I've stumbled onto some largely unreviewed backwater (sorry) article from the hoary past. Isn't this a good example of the assumption that "bad characteristics" must have been arisen in our unevolved past, may still be found as curious examples in unevolved races, and aren't we glad 'we' aren't bums like 'them'?
In any case, can we find some justication for the above statement? It just seems spurious and unsupportable. Shenme 07:00, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's not like it would be preserved in any fossil evidence. Did some "cave-man" draw pictures of big-assed women on his wall?
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- I am sure that someone will point to the various figurines called Venuses as 'evidence'. The famous Venus of Willendorf is the 'type' for many people, I think. The counter is that these most likely are exaggerations created as abstract symbols of female fertility. And to anybody who objects to that characterization, I'd offer the cover pictures of modern women's magazines, which feature abstractions propitious only for male fertility, and equally unlikely to serve as an accurate 'type' for modern women. Shenme 04:04, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- It's not the article's identification of steatopygia as being common in early humans that is racist, it's your assumption that it's a bad characteristic. --86.135.87.145 13:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Removed edited picture
I have removed the link to Image:Steatopygia.jpg because the image there currently is some kind of extreme caricature which looks like someone has played about with an original from http://deadbarnacle.afraid.org/blog/0041.html . Telsa 12:55, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The Panglossian Paradigm on the march
The whole discussion of how steatopygia are "adaptive" to a hot, arid climate borders on the silly. The author makes the common mistake of assuming that if a trait is used for a particular purpose, selective pressure must have developed the structure for that purpose. That isn't necessarily true, as Stephen Jay Gould pointed out in his landmark paper "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm." Would-be evolutionary biologists are strongly encouraged to read the paper before announcing that a particular trait is "adaptive" for a particular purpose.
I do not deny the accuracy of any of the statements about the advantage of concentrating fat in a particular location. All of that may well be true. But there is nothing to support the assertion that steatopygia were evolved for some sort of thermal purpose, other than the fact that there is an advantage to having a steatopygia in certain climates. They could have developed for any number of equally plausible reasons, or no reason at all. Evolution does not always produce optimal structures. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.16.4.254 (talk • contribs).
