Whoah, fallacy barrage.

Originally Posted by Austin
Actually, they can be tested just like any other hypotheses. There are many examples of species changing behavior and even progenys' physical attributes in response to social stimuli. One of the best known is the change in locusts from sedentary individuals to mass migrating clouds.

Poor analogy.

Originally Posted by Austin
Infanticide and war/executions were the two main means of birth control throughout history. Birth control is one of those "socio-evolutionary" practices that has deep roots in "survival." You can starve and die or you can kill some or all of your kids - or kill your neighbors and take their stuff. The use of infanticide among the Innuit, for example, is well documented. Scarcity in tribal societies almost always led to organized total war - and the evidence of "genocide" is deep in the paleo-archeological record across all societies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

Red herring. The topic is family planning.

Here's this might help you get back on topic: http://www.uic.edu/classes/osci/osci590/13_2%20Birth%20Control%20in%20Antiquity.htm

Originally Posted by Austin
Medieval Europe was nearly destroyed by a series of political crises, followed by famine due to the start of the little ice age, and then the plague. This did completely destroy the social fabric and almost wiped out the Church. "Morals" went out the window.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Distant_Mirror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Late_Middle_Ages

And this would explain why I didn't call them medieval morals, I called them Victorian morals, so straw man.

Originally Posted by Austin
Which "significant" cultures are those? I can't think of any.

Argument from ignorance.

Just off the top of my head, the Five Nations have been thoroughly trashed by US history, so I doubt you'd consider them significant (and any qualified historian would strongly disagree), so how about Rome?

http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/legal%20status%20of%20women%20in%20ancient%20rome.htm

And here is some basic information about the historic links between sex and religion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_prostitutes

Originally Posted by Austin
Rearing kids imposes huge costs and task specialization is required to ensure survival.

Argument by assertion, and one which clearly holds no water in our society at that.

Originally Posted by Austin
Everyone likes to talk about relaxed views about sex until a 300 lb jealous husband is sitting on you doing the ground and pound. Or you get a disease. Or feelings get hurt. Or a jealous wife expels another woman from the group or a "homebreaker" does the reverse - causing great discord. Or the kids get hurt.

Red herring again. I offered no argument about current Western culture's attitudes towards sex.

Originally Posted by Austin
There is extensive, quantitative research on "socio-biology" and human social organization.

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/sear/pdfs/who%20keeps.pdf

Red herring. Research on how modern societies organize themselves tells us nothing of past societies, especially given the significant amount of homogeneity in the modern world.