When did society learn about human reproduction (NSFW)
From a historical perspective?
Was it caveman days or BC?
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23 Answers
@filmfann I ment the date that science discovered reproduction for the human race? Like cavemen? What is the earliest reference in recorded history?
What did the ancient humans think before the notion that sex caused pregnancy?
It is something that cavemen figured out, probably before homo sapiens.
I’d think that Adam & Eve were the ones who first noticed & put 2 & 2 together.
Up until very recently, the predominant idea was “preformatism”, the belief that offspring derived from miniaturised, fully formed homunculi. The sperm therefore contained an already fully formed human, that was only enlarged later, and the mother served only as an incubator and supplier of material for that growth.
Epigenetics, humans developing from undifferentiated cells, only began to gain traction in the latter half of the 18th century.
Genetics, as discovered by Gregor Mendel, came later still.
So, if I were to define “learn about human reproduction” as learning it accurately, which I am, I would say humans learned about it 2 centuries ago.
Anyone who has spent any time working with or observing animals figures it out. Farm kids learn it pretty quickly. It’s not rocket science.
When the first meeting between adult human male and female occurred most likely. It is our strongest instinct.
Looks to be the 1800’s, by what I’ve read about people back then.
(Reproduction, where babies come from how and why, not the sex act.)
@LadyMarissa Adam and Eve didn’t have enough kids v non kids to make the connection.
Dude.
Insects know about reproduction.
What do you even mean?
Explain to me your imagination of a situation where humans have (not even written) language, and they don’t understand about reproduction. How could they fail to get that?
@Zaku Having sex and knowledge of what happens 9.5 months after ones is not inherently known. I am talking Clan of the Cave Bear past.
When was a time before sex education where not even the adults understood that sex causes pregnancies?
What was the belief before that?
Not inherently, perhaps, but humans are believed to have begun ’’behavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago,[27] and possibly earlier.[28]
That is, in the period you’re imagining, humans were not only the same species we are, but they were developing language, technology, culture, etc.
And again, even insects know about reproduction. So do animals. They may not know the exact cause and effect and details we’ve learned, but “discovering reproduction” happened before humans became human. And we get reminded every time a woman gives birth.
Once people have language, it doesn’t take long for them to start talking about it, and making observations and deductions, not only about humans, but about the other animals as well.
People in the past were as smart as the smart people we have now.
The only people who are confused about reproduction, are children and others who are misled or have information withheld from them for cultural or religious reasons.
@Zaku Was there a time when adults believed in , “the Stork” that delivered babies that came once a blue moon?
Was there any stories of the before time about sex education before? Human gestation was 9.5 months from conception; That’s a long time to find a cause?
My guess is that cave people believed that the gods made women pregnant.
I’m sure there are STILL some adult humans, say in Utah or some other place with deliberately misinformed and/or ignorant people, with weird ideas about storks or where babies come from, but that’s not a matter of human culture not knowing it – it’s about regressive cultures that want to control people, or who have fallen into other degenerate practices of maleducation.
There may have been some human cultures who have had some peculiar ideas, and there have been and still are certainly some religious embellishments, but as far as humans as a whole not having “discovered” that sex causes pregnancy which results in children, the answer is definitely NO, that’s not a thing. There is a very clear correlation that animals figure out and that people are capable of figuring out and telling each other about.
And in any case, the understanding pre-dates any written records we have – there are zero cultures writing down that they are confused in any way about parentage (except for creative exceptions like immaculate conception, or other religious embellishments), and certainly no recorded discoveries like “Hey, we finally discovered what makes women pregnant – you’ll never believe it, but . . .”
People in the past were not dumber than we are.
Even though popular belief is that pregnancies last 9 months, actually it is 10 months. The rationale for this is that, from the medical viewpoint, gestational age is counted from the date of the last menstrual period. This adds about 2 more weeks to the total length of pregnancy, since ovulation and fertilization occur two weeks after the last period.
@Zaku I grew up in Utah. I understand Mormon culture. I am also fairly well educated on polygamist life and thinking. Believe me, both cultures are very much aware of where babies come from.
And as I mentioned before, anyone from a farming background already knows the mechanics of sex. Mormons are from that background.
On a lighter note:
One of my aunts had 11 children, and also a very dry sense of humor. Car seat technology was a new invention, and we were discussing the new laws of car seats and seatbelts. There was a pause in our conversation, and she said, “Who needs car seats? We know where babies come from! We can get more!”
According to this article, Australian aborigines may not have known that it is sex that leads to childbirth.
@snowberry Yes, all human cultures, and almost all human people, know where babies come from. The exceptions are just the individuals who have been undereducated and/or misled by the others. I picked on Utah as a place that (my impression is) has a larger fringe of isolated children whose parents/guardians might mislead them in various ways, possibly including deprived sexual education.
For another example, I’ve talked to people raised in the 1950s (in the Los Angeles area) by otherwise intelligent and not particularly religious parents, who weren’t trying to maleducate their children, who didn’t really know how you got pregnant.
However those people (and I imagine almost everyone who’s not severely misled, even from a very young age, and even pre-historic people) quickly get at least the info that it involves something like “when a man and a woman love each other, the woman can create a child”, which is what I think @RedDeerGuy1 is asking about here.
@LostInParadise Even the writer of that article is aware that they’re fishing for a possible example, which may not be accurate. It seems to me that it’s a willful misunderstanding, which the author explains, expressed uncharitably for the purpose of being able to claim that the aborigines don’t understand that sex is required for pregnancy. That is, they seem to know it’s involved (as I would say, they almost obviously must) but are really talking about what else is involved, since they ALSO know that not everyone who has sex gets pregnant, some people never get pregnant, and some people get pregnant sometimes but not others, etc, which leads to theories about that, which is something modern educated Westerners do too.
Having a sex drive is not the same thing as knowing what it’s for or can result in or HOW!
@Zaku from your link…”On the other hand, the aborigines recognize that intercourse somehow paves the way for the spirit child’s arrival. They just don’t think it’s essential. Considering the state of sexual knowledge among some Westerners, e.g., my brother (“Whaddaya mean she’s pregnant? We only did it once!”), I wouldn’t be too hard on the aborigines.”
Hahaha! So true! Thanks for that!
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