http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d98/sabotabby/evopsychbingo.jpg

I tend to think where such junk science claims as "wealthy men give women more orgasms" both belong and emanate from. Sheesh. Whatta lotta bunk.

Nicely done. I am always astounded by the number of articles where some expert comes up with a biased and poorly supported interpretation of some study (or worse, some random observation) and claims it shows some evolutionary "truth." Your explanation is more plausible, and sensible.

It's actually been quite difficult to determine the evolutionary role of female orgasm. Its presence or absence doesn't seem to affect pregnancy rates. And an often-misunderstood key concept of evolution is that a new trait (eg, female orgasm) must result in a greater number of offspring versus those without the new trait, or else it will not become part of the dominant gene pool.

It IS fun to speculate, but hard to prove.

Thanks for the de-bunking.
I read the news-story yesterday and I had to re-check that I wasn't on The Onion's web-site. How ridiculous it sounded!

"Like women practically everywhere, Chinese women have been cut off from the means of taking care of themselves and their children for millennia. There are few places on earth where it's not at least a severe hardship to be a single mother. Being able to relax is itself a major source of female orgasmic potential, as this study suggests. Let's see if women in Sweden, where women don't need a partner to ensure the economic security of their children, are motivated by a sexual partner's income. Let's see whether women with no economic worries have as many orgasms with rich carpet salesmen as they do with brilliant, admired (but low-income) artists."

You seem to concede that female orgasms are indeed linked to a concern about economic support for their children. In China, where economic resources are more concentrated with men, this would support the conclusions of the authors in the study cited - that is, that women need to encourage male investment in their children. In countries, like Sweden, where women are more financially independent, this effect would be diminished or disappear. The argument advanced in the quoted paragraph does little to address the conclusion that the frequency of orgasm is linked to a woman's concern over economic security for herself and her children (which the study's authors would argue is based in evolution). You only argue that that evolutionary concern changes or is eliminated across different societies/cultures (essentially, an argument of phenotypic plasticity).

It’s funny that you bring up Sweden. I don't know if there exist any Swedish data on this but in Sweden’s neighbouring(and in many ways similar) country Norway the picture is clear: “serial polygyny” is on the rise. And increasingly it’s the low-income men without a higher education who are finding themselves childless as they age.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. A brief reply:

To "A little help:" You're certainly right that the pleasure of sex serves as a positive reinforcement, but I'd question your conclusion that more sex = increased chances of pregnancy. On one level, it may be true that for the male, more sex could mean more offspring, but not for the female (depending on what species we're talking about, of course). For a low reproductive-potential species like ours, and all the other apes, there is a quite severe limit on how many offspring a female can bear and nurse in her reproductive lifetime. For humans, the upper limit is around a dozen -- and half that in pre-agricultural societies. So, no matter how much sex a woman has, she's not likely to have more than a dozen children.

Also, most mammals have sex only when the female is ovulating. Humans and bonobos (and to a lesser extent, chimps) are strangely hyperactive sexually. Having so much more sex than necessary is very unusual across species.

To "Reader:" My point is that IF the numbers and methodology are correct (a big if), then the women's response is likely due to relief from having to worry so much about survival. Whether this worry manifests in terms of money or not is far downstream -- a function of the context she's living in. If, for example, we were talking about a society living in constant noise (sorry, there's construction going on next to where I'm writing this), we might find that women's sexual response seemed related to men having sound-proof rooms. The fact that they were relaxed in the sound-proof room is what allowed a more gratifying response, not the idea that their children would thrive growing up in all that silence! So, my point was to call attention to the effects of relaxation, not to reinforce the point about investment in offspring, which I continue to believe is primarily an artifact of a given socio-economic context.

Thanks for commenting.

You make very hard criticism of this research, but the authors of the paper are scientists who work in a very important university. There seems to be no record of you except what you write about your self. What are your qualifications to criticize the work of real scientists when you appear to be not a scientist at all?

You use many metaphor. Perhaps you could say your critic of real scientists is like a maker of models criticizing an engineer.

Hi Antonio,

Fair question. If you go to the archives, you'll find that in our first post we explain who we are and our educational and professional background.

Still, even without letters behind their name, anyone's got the right to critique science, as long as their critique makes sense. The central strength of the scientific process is that your methodology and results hold water or they don't. You don't need to have a plumber's license to determine that.

CPR

Wow, Antonio may not have said it well, but he does have a point if you actually think about it. I have read and even participated in many of your blog posts and I have often wondered the same before getting caught up in the rhetoric. Ignoring the scientific method and attacking established researchers seems to be your thing.

I just looked you up in the national register and you're not listed as a licensed professional. You are not affiliated to any research institution as far as I can see. Has Mr. Antonio hit upon something?

Well my dear, I'm afraid Antonio does have a point. Presenting yourself as a psychologist is like a person presenting his or herself as a lawyer based on the merits of having attended law school but not having taken the bar exam. I don't know about Spanish law, but in the States that is illegal.

And, unless I'm mistaken, Saybrook doesn't have a branch in Spain, so I would assume that yours are online degrees? Bravo Antonio!

As for the straw man defense of your right to lob attacks at established researchers, nobody is questioning that so much as the merits of the authority that you attempt to project. Not to mention your flawed dialectic.

But as you say in your own words, "agreement makes for less interesting blog-fodder than disagreement." To wit: You are more interested in gaining attention for yourself than in engaging in legitimate analysis.

Actually, the states who include exemptions from licensing in order to use the title "psychologist" require that those who use the title are teaching in universities, which Mr. CPR is not.

In most states, self-employed psychologists offering services to the public, whether they are clinical, counseling, school, or industrial psychologists must be licensed, which usually requires an advanced degree, two years of supervised experience, and passing written and oral examinations. Psychologists must also complete one year of a clinical internship, either pre-doctoral or post-doctoral. After receiving the Ph.D. the psychologist must spend an additional year as a "Psychologist Resident" and work under the supervision of a licensed psychologist before they are able to take the written licensing examination.

In other words, the rigorous requirements dictate that merely completing an online degree with no human contact or interaction with true psychologists and the scientific method is not and should not be sufficient. The profession and the title deserve more respect than that.

If that is trolling, then so be it.

I'm afraid you've fallen into a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." "Psychologists who have a doctoral degree" does not mean that everyone who has a doctoral degree is a psychologist. Sorry.

Good grief. The writer is not addressing clinical issues; he is evaluating the integrity of academic arguments with respect to logic and scientific data. This does not require a license.

Personally, I cannot remember a single instance when the writer of this blog has attacked anyone personally. Every researcher must be prepared to defend his/her assertions when challenged, including Dr. Kanazawa. That's the essence of science.

BTW: I've noticed that Dr. Kanazawa does not respond to questions or comments on his blog. However, this writer graciously responds to everyone.

It's a question of integrity. When a person presents his or her self as a psychologist without any true claim to the title, the attempt to add an air of legitimacy to the critique is a sham at best, if not outright fraud.

If you were to discover that the pundit who called himself a "lawyer" while he critiqued legislation had never passed the bar, or that the tax expert on the radio who commented on tax law was not really a "CPA," would you not find that somewhat egregious? Why should psychology, and the standards of Psychology Today, be any different?

BTW: I seem to recall that the writer equated Kanazawa to Rush Limbaugh, called him a "supposed scientist" and insinuated that he never had the opportunity to decline sex. That strikes me as rather personal. Further, he accuses Kanazawa, a respected researcher at an established university, of being provacative merely to increase hits, when the writer admits in this very string that his attacks make for a more interesting blog. Pot calling the kettle black anyone?

Firstly, an observation is not a witch-hunt.

Secondly, a simple phone call to the APA (202-336-5500) will confirm that no license + no affiliation to a university = no title. It's as simple as that.

If someone told you that (which I doubt), then they haven't looked at their own guidelines or web site.

If you go to the APA site, there is a glossary of terms, here:
http://www.psychologymatters.org/glossary.html#p

where you'll find "psychologist" defined thusly:

"Psychologist An individual with a doctoral degree in psychology from an organized, sequential program in a regionally accredited university or professional school."

That's what it says. All it says. Deal with it.

I'm sure you'll insist on having the last word, because that's how people like you are. It's more important to seem right than to be right. Enjoy it, as I won't be checking back and have wasted more than enough time with you already.

Well done, CPRose. After only five days, you managed to find a glossary entry that corroborates your claim. It IS strange how the APA's Ethics Office is unaware of that sentence within their own material.

Though, perhaps it is not so strange. After all, if you were to simply Google "What is a psychologist?", most of the descriptions you find will be more or less as the Bureau of Labor Statistics describe it:

"Experimental or research psychologists work in university and private research centers and in business, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. ... Psychologists employed as faculty by colleges and universities divide their time between teaching and research and also may have administrative responsibilities."
(www.bls.gov/oco/ocos056.htm)

It seems that the abundance of material out there, at least that which goes into any detail, serves only to obfuscate the truth.

Bravo. You are vindicated. That distance learning program of yours certainly didn't leave you too far behind the curve. I wish you luck in your armchair endeavours to prove yourself superior to those employed by actual institutions. Thank you for the debate. It's been ... enlightening.

(BTW: "People like me" seem to be rather similar to people like you. Except, for a "scientist," you sure get emotional. Possibly some actual training in the scientific method will cure you of that.)

Fact . . Women are hardwired to find a mate who has a high social value
This author needs to under stand that spendin money on a female
Is manipulation, and in poor china it is good enough.
In a far more socialy liberal country USA, women need attraction
Attraction is the greatest gift
Be a lover and give her stacked orgasms
Be a provider(rich) and she will walk all ova u