Science Cafe Social Event in New York City

Last night over twenty members of my meetup group - NY Brainiac Singles attended a mixer and lecture at the Museum of Natural History in New York. This was a really cool venue for an event, and over four hundred people turned up, so many in fact that a lot of people did not get in. They had free appetizers and a cash bar. The guests huddled between igneous and sedimentary rocks, meteorites and globes, all set with cozy night lighting, and warm ambiance for mingling and meeting other geeks.
I noticed that there were definitely a lot of very cute women, some with boyfriends, some alone. There were people of all ages from the 20's to 70's.

What else would you need to bring out the cities geek's? But there was also a rather interesting lecture given by Dr David Buss of the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of

"Why Women Have Sex"
The lecture was themed: "Learn about mating strategies and discuss why sex is used for more than just reproduction and pleasure."


I am not sure that I got a answer to this question in the lecture, but maybe I still will have to read the book.
He talked a lot about "Mate Guarding", and made reference to observations in the animal kingdom. The most often one that I have heard is about the elephant seals on the coast of California. The males can weight up to 4000 pounds and fight for ownership of harems of up to twenty females who are usually only up to 1000 pounds. Some other males still try to poach around the edges, but typically the successful males only
last in this position for a couple of years, and then retire to the beach alone with the other spent males.





Buss also gave examples of spider and chimp mate guarding. There were some examples of some isolated human tribes in Africa. Now the big extrapolation is how this applies to modern humans living in the big city. Why do men commit most of the murders, and 90% of the time it is their spouse. Is this about control, or reckless aggression, and or is it programmed into the DNA? Not sure I got all the answers, but these things are never clear, except maybe now that I think about it, I think it would be quite interesting to pick up a copy of the Buss's book...