August 27, 2005
latimes.com : Opinion : Commentary

Ah, sweet mysteries of science

# Why is ovulation in human females a secret? Why do women have
orgasms? These and other questions show how much we don't know.

By David P. Barash, DAVID P. BARASH, an author and a professor
of psychology at the University of Washington, is working on a
new book, "Womanly Mysteries: A Darwinian Look at What We Don't
Know About the Female Body."

IT HAS BECOME fashionable - at least in some quarters - to speak
of "the death of science," the idea that we've already finished
with the big stuff, so what's left is just a matter of "mopping
up." In any event, I would like to make my own proclamation:
Science isn't dead. It isn't even sick. There is a huge amount
that we do not know; indeed, we don't know all that we don't
know. Not only that, many of the things we don't know are right
under our noses.

A surprisingly rich trove of ignorance involves the bodies of
women; most questions have to do with sex, but they aren't so
much sexy as connected to reproduction, in ways that modern
biology is only beginning to appreciate. Call them "womanly
mysteries" - they comprise an array of perplexities that
evolutionary science, combined with anatomy, physiology and
who-knows-what-else, will likely begin to unravel in the years
ahead.

Never mind what men don't know; even most women are clueless
about the mysteries inside their own bodies.

Take ovulation. Human females release eggs from their ovaries
just like other mammals but with this odd twist: They are very
secretive about it. Visit a zoo, for instance, and you will have
no doubt as to when a female chimpanzee is producing eggs - it
is as clear as the bright pink enlargement on her bottom.

Female humans, in contrast, keep this crucial information very
much to themselves. Indeed, it is extraordinary that such a
basic biological fact as the time of maximum female fertility -
something so consequential for matters of health and
reproduction - is so difficult to ascertain. Why the deep, dark
secret?

There are several possible explanations. Maybe concealed
ovulation is a biological ploy to keep men around. After all, if
our great-great-grandfathers didn't know when our
great-great-grandmothers were ovulating, they might have been
more likely to stick close to home, thereby minimizing the
likelihood that some gallivanting neighbor - instead of
themselves - would give rise to the next generation.

Or maybe the evolutionary pressure worked in the opposite
direction, and instead of generating monogamy, concealed
ovulation began as a way to give prehistoric women greater
flexibility in their reproductive choices. If men knew when
women were ovulating, they might have guarded them closely only
during those times. But since the men didn't have clear clues as
to when the women were fertile - and couldn't be on watch at all
times - our female ancestors might have had greater leeway to
reproduce with whomever they chose.

Or maybe the evolutionary pressure to conceal ovulation is a
strategy to keep such reproductively relevant information hidden
from other females, especially dominant ones who might interfere
with a subordinate's reproduction. Which is correct? We simply
do not know. Yet.

And even if one of these rationales is the right one, it doesn't
get close to solving this related mystery: It is one thing to
conceal ovulation from others, but why are most women unable to
detect their own ovulation? Again, we just don't know.

There are plenty more unanswered questions. Why, for instance,
are women typically the fancy, brightly colored individuals,
while in most other species the males are thus endowed?

Or why do women experience orgasm? Could it be a way of
enhancing the male-female bond? Does it facilitate
fertilization? Is it a means whereby a woman's body tells her
that she is with a desirable partner? Or - Darwin forbid! -
could it be that female orgasm isn't "adaptive" at all?

Sometimes I think we teach science incorrectly, as a recitation
of what we have learned. This misplaces the focus onto what we
know. The disconcerting, alluring, exciting, frustrating truth
is that there is a whole lot more that we don't know, even when
it comes to more than half the human population.

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