In her new book, Sarah Hrdy's explores the natural history of paternal care, describing the underlying behavioral endocrinology and speculating on its evolutionary origins.
Thanks, interesting take on Father Time. I've just started reading Father Time when I came across your post. I've read several books of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, she's a great scholar and an inspiring writer. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy: “Human males may nurture their young a little, a lot, or not at all” (Mothers and Others, 2009: 162). I am very curious how her journey got Hrdy from this universal truth to this point that you mention: "My unexpected finding is that inside every man there lurk ancient caretaking tendencies that render a man every bit as protective and nurturing as the most committed mother. After all: “Of all the casts of characters in this melodrama the role of the father is the most subject to creative script variation” - David Lancy (The Anthropology of Childhood - Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings, 2022: 131).
It seems the softening of Hrdy's view of the innate care capacities/proclivities of men began in the 2010s. It appears to be in response to two major lines of research: 1) live brain imaging (fMRI) studies of the parents of newborns and 2) behavioral endocrinology studies in humans of prolonged exposure to children (I link to the famous PNAS study which was also popularized by Jo Henrich in The WEIRDest People in the World). It seems her experiences watching millennial fathering practices in America firsthand also motivated her rethinking.
As my review hopefully highlights, I am persuaded by the latter evidence but not impressed by the former. And in her speculation about how selection has shaped male parenting, I think she's invested a bit too much in marginal phenomenon. It seems the sexual selection dynamics (i.e. differential parental investment - a theory pioneered by her post-doc advisor) is still likely most of what is going on (past and present) and we're just talking about changes in the human niche and what status is/means.
From a genetic perspective, it is of course very plausible that there is a substrate for care/parenting shared by both sexes. It would be interesting to know what the genetic architecture of that substrate is (in the autosome) and how the presence of a Y chromosome and a lack of a second X chromosome is likely to modify the expression of that care substrate. We may also learn how much natural variation there is in care/parenting abilities/proclivities. I'm sure some insight can already be already gleaned from the genetics/GWAS literature, but I haven't investigated.
The endocrine response appears to be an adapted response to prolonged proximity to babies. Happens in any human being. In animals, this can also be replicated but it often a lot harder to trigger. Hrdy describes attempts to sensitize male mice to unrelated pups in the book. Most of the time the unrelated male mouse just kills and cannibalizes the pup. Hrdy's account does not entirely explain why infanticide is seemingly so rare in humans compared to the animal kingdom and even near ape relatives (e.g. chimps).
Thanks, interesting take on Father Time. I've just started reading Father Time when I came across your post. I've read several books of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, she's a great scholar and an inspiring writer. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy: “Human males may nurture their young a little, a lot, or not at all” (Mothers and Others, 2009: 162). I am very curious how her journey got Hrdy from this universal truth to this point that you mention: "My unexpected finding is that inside every man there lurk ancient caretaking tendencies that render a man every bit as protective and nurturing as the most committed mother. After all: “Of all the casts of characters in this melodrama the role of the father is the most subject to creative script variation” - David Lancy (The Anthropology of Childhood - Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings, 2022: 131).
It seems the softening of Hrdy's view of the innate care capacities/proclivities of men began in the 2010s. It appears to be in response to two major lines of research: 1) live brain imaging (fMRI) studies of the parents of newborns and 2) behavioral endocrinology studies in humans of prolonged exposure to children (I link to the famous PNAS study which was also popularized by Jo Henrich in The WEIRDest People in the World). It seems her experiences watching millennial fathering practices in America firsthand also motivated her rethinking.
As my review hopefully highlights, I am persuaded by the latter evidence but not impressed by the former. And in her speculation about how selection has shaped male parenting, I think she's invested a bit too much in marginal phenomenon. It seems the sexual selection dynamics (i.e. differential parental investment - a theory pioneered by her post-doc advisor) is still likely most of what is going on (past and present) and we're just talking about changes in the human niche and what status is/means.
From a genetic perspective, it is of course very plausible that there is a substrate for care/parenting shared by both sexes. It would be interesting to know what the genetic architecture of that substrate is (in the autosome) and how the presence of a Y chromosome and a lack of a second X chromosome is likely to modify the expression of that care substrate. We may also learn how much natural variation there is in care/parenting abilities/proclivities. I'm sure some insight can already be already gleaned from the genetics/GWAS literature, but I haven't investigated.
What about biologic data on human adoptive parents both male and female as well as any adoptive animal data?
The endocrine response appears to be an adapted response to prolonged proximity to babies. Happens in any human being. In animals, this can also be replicated but it often a lot harder to trigger. Hrdy describes attempts to sensitize male mice to unrelated pups in the book. Most of the time the unrelated male mouse just kills and cannibalizes the pup. Hrdy's account does not entirely explain why infanticide is seemingly so rare in humans compared to the animal kingdom and even near ape relatives (e.g. chimps).