There are at least two parts to sexual arousal. The mental part, where we likes what we sees. And the physical part, which happens more or less on its own. An old-ish article from Seed Magazine tells us that men and women both report little to no arousal when watching monkeys have sex. But when […]
Archive | Evolution and Such
Music is Language. Part Three.
Due to a recent confusion I had about “perfect pitch” (also known as absolute pitch), I looked it up and found that it means being able to “identify the letter-name of a sounded note.” I play a note, you tell me what it was. Of course, if you don’t know the letter names, then I […]
Bigfoot
Not TOO long ago, I made my first ever podcast of sorts, about how early (but biologically modern) humans mingled with other hominids. The other hominids ended up dying off, but here we are. Seed magazine (linked to on the right of weeklyrob’s main page) this month has printed a conversation between a couple of […]
Now Open
The Creation Museum. If you don’t want to subscribe for free to the New York Times online, you can read about it here, here, here, etc. One thing that seems to be missing from all these “reviews” and news articles is any sense of outrage or contempt. There’s no good reason that a publication of […]
It Takes a Village
So now that I’ve learned all the ways that the mother can hurt herself or the baby during delivery (pushing too soon, for example), and how breatfeeding is often not an instinct that comes naturally to mother or child, and how a new baby really should be rocked for hours and hours a day, I […]
Weekly Rob Goes Audio
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this week’s post is an audio file. I don’t think I’ll make a habit out of this, but I told someone recently how easy it is to make a podcast and I thought that I’d better actually try it myself. So listen to this bad boy and tell me what’s wrong […]
Evolution is Scary
How’d ya like to see one of these babies on your lawn? (Link) [Via Truth Plus Lies] [End of Post]
Why Do We Groove Part 2
This isn’t actually a part 2. This is a completely different musing about music. Western classical music has this thing where you expect all the tension in the piece to end on a soothing note in the right key, but sometimes it doesn’t. You’re stuck there, while the music moves on, building more tension. [I’m […]
Why Do We Groove?
According to Don Brown’s “Human Universals†list (which I’m sure you can find on the Internet, but which I have open in front of me), the following behaviors can be found in every human culture ever discovered: •Music (vocal and other) •Music related to dance •Musical repetition •Musical variation •Music seen as art •Children’s music […]
Finding Fault with Darwin
It has been pointed out that I read Seed magazine a lot. Here’s some more. Homosexuality seems to be a bit of an evolutionary mystery. How could wanting to have sex with with your own sex possibly help to pass on genes? Joan Roughgarden has some ideas. She notes that literally hundreds of animals exhibit […]