The cohesive social structure that runs through a pride is provided by the lionesses, which are mostly sisters, kin and offspring. The male roars, has his way, and then lies back while the females stalk and hunt for food. His other chore is to fend off the occasional male rival that would seek to take over his privileges in the pride. Why does the rival lion want to take over the pride?
I think the reason a rival male would want to acquire a pride is that it feels randy, and wants to have sex. Once in the pride, it will try to access females, but finds they are not interested. The cubs are demanding, and divert the female's attention. The lion therefore kills the cubs to remove this distraction, and viola, the lionesses again come into heat and are available for sex. That is the end of it. There is no thought or hidden motive about genes. Sex for pleasure is the reason. To a human, such a horrendous whim of pleasure with such monstrous results demands further reason. But you have to get over the emotion of what is not appropriate for humans, to see life from another angle. Incidentally, the lions would not kill their own offspring, because they have time to become familiar with them, and therefore bonded with them.
Sex and infanticide to spread genes implies a level of knowledge and intuition beyond the lion and any other animal. They have no idea that sex leads to young and the spreading of genes. They didn't go to school, hang out behind the shelter shed, or have a language to pass on such information. As demonstration, even early humans had no idea that sex caused babies. William Robertson (In 'An illustrated history of contraception') provides the example of the Euduna tribe. They thought they were having pale coloured babies because they had begun to eat white bread. They had no idea that the white men who visited occasionally were the cause. So doing things for sex in animal land does not equate to any need in them to spread genes or create offspring. The genes will spread as a result of sex, but the need to spread genes is not the driver behind the behaviour. Evolutionary psychology regularly states that animals mate to spread their genes. But nothing could be further from the truth. That is why sex had to be so pleasurable. Without pleasure, animals would probably not even bother to have sex, as they have no care about their genes or feel any need to extend their lineage.
What about subconsciously? What if genes intended sex to be pleasurable, so they could control the body like a robot and thereby spread themselves? Then, indirectly the sex and infanticide is caused by selfish genes. Really, this possibility is one that could only occur in an artificial animal like a human. The conscious and subconscious wills of wild animals are much more in tune, so that sensations and feelings experienced in the conscious are accurate reflections of what is important to the animal in its deepest recesses. In nature, what you see is what you get, if you know where to look and how to listen. If animals have no mind to spread genes, then the motive will not occur in their subconscious either.
Genes are the bookkeepers of nature. They hold the history of biology in their pages. But evolution can only select those genes that totally comply with the environment, are 'willing' to break themselves up as toys for the environment (you cannot be selfish if you are also willing to deconstruct yourself through the natural processes of sex and mutation), and that place no effort or distraction into promoting their own station. After all, genes are only the chemicals adenine, thymine, cytidine and guanine. It is not like they can have their own desires, attitudes or selfish plans. Oh sorry, evolutionary psychologists think they do! No gene can try to make the environment serve them. They cannot outsmart nature.
Saying that genes intend their own procreation is not even a useful rule of thumb for understanding the processes of evolution, because it can then unwittingly be suggested that lions kill cubs to spread their genes. But genes must suit a different set of criteria than selfish intention. They must suit the judgement panel of the wildness that occurs in a given environment. What are the criteria important to wildness? The point of life is not to spread genes, but to live in parsimony, directness, naturalness and fulfilment, i.e. wildness. Of all the animals, humans are now the most miserable, because they have lost sight of the fun to be had in such an uplifting mix.
Now the wildness has obviously judged that infanticide by lions can be tolerated by the broader community of biotic and abiotic factors that make up the ecosystem. Don't then feel that we have to apologise for this behaviour in lions, when at the same time they take the much braver and stronger course of also complying and seeking permission from nature to be what they are, behaving totally within the bosom of nature. Wildness accepts different behaviours in different animals, and as a species you will not know your calling until you are brave enough to listen to that wildness directly yourselves. (posted September 2004 by Dr Beetle)
