"Back to the Future -- Interviews with Outstanding Scientists in the World

Author: Barbara (USA)
Translator: Li Yao et al.
Editor-in-Chief: Xia Qian
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-03-01
Features:
Fragment: Sex, the Exploration from Ape to Human – Interview with Sarah Hrdy
Women Need What? According to Darwin's view, they need good men. However, after years of observing animal behavior, Sarah Hrdy, as a scientist and biologist, discovered that female animals are not monogamous. She proposed some new perspectives on sex and mating. Additionally, she refuted the notion that shy and timid females are biologically destined to be monogamous partners and that they remain passive during sexual intercourse.
"Abu's Langur: Reproductive Strategies of Females and Males" is a groundbreaking paper written by Hrdy after meticulous research on Indian langurs. In this paper, she points out that female primates are dominant sexual strategists. In her four published monographs and numerous papers, Hrdy has elaborated important theories in sociobiology and animal behavior—related to female sexuality, competition, sexual climax, and infanticide. As an ambitious and eloquent writer, she is not afraid to present herself as a "character" in her research, much like a novelist. However, the fame she gained from her revolutionary views also came at a high price. "Sometimes, I feel very uncomfortable—media portrays me as an advocate who believes promiscuity is natural. But if you're talking about humans, not animals, I am absolutely not such an advocate," she said passionately.
Hrdy was born in 1946. Her book The Black Man of Ceyxantán: A Mesoamerican Legend is her senior thesis from Radcliffe College. This book analyzes Mayan mythology—the devil, Black Kukulkan. Black Kukulkan is a cruel figure who takes revenge on women who behave improperly. Hrdy later pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, shifting from cultural anthropology to primatology. At first glance, this book seems unrelated to her later research direction. However, further study reveals that the social control over female sexuality is the most important theme in all her work.
At the age of 25, Hrdy traveled to Rajasthan, India, to study the langurs of Abu, a sacred mountain (legend has it that the great toe of Shiva① is enshrined there). This "graceful" black-faced monkey immediately caught her attention for two reasons. First, female langurs are promiscuous—they often leave their mating partners to secretly mate with wandering males. Second, male langurs are brutal. After abducting "wives and concubines," they always kill all the nursing infants brought by the females. Once the female is in heat, they take matters into their own hands to mate and produce their own offspring.
Postscript:
After receiving the original manuscript of this book from Mr. Xia Qian, we hesitated slightly. It is a profound, theoretically advanced book that involves specialized knowledge from many fields, with a certain academic level. The translator of this book should first be an anthropologist, archaeologist, biochemist, geneticist, psychiatrist, medical expert, or even a computer expert—just as a poet should first be a poet. We are none of these, merely ordinary translators. However, after browsing through it once, we were deeply moved by the profound thoughts, miraculous discoveries, and scientific new findings contained in the book, especially the lofty ideals and spiritual demeanor of the eleven scientists.
Marie-Claire King said, "Money is not important; it is not my aspiration. If you want to make money, don't do what we do." Other scientists almost unanimously agreed, "Thinking that scientific research will make you rich is foolish."