Wednesday 18 September 2002

Pic of the day: The male (left) and the female (right) form of human are almost indistinguishable to the outside observer. The brightly colored areas are decorative synthskin used to cover and enhance the sex-specific areas. The actual genitals (middle of the body) are quite small, but the synthskin covers a much larger area. The females also usually decorate their glands for feeding larvae (upper body). The differently colored area at the top of the head is natural and consists of tens of thousands of thin fibers ("hair"), another mammal feature. It conveys information about the individual's age and health.

The alien letters, 2

In our previous report, we mentioned that the human mode of reproduction is essential to understanding the psychology of the species. In this report, we will go into more detail on this.

The first thing that strikes us is the imbalance between the two sexes. The female contributes virtually all the body mass of the offspring through her own body for a long time, both before and after the larva leaves her body. (Actually the offspring is born with a striking resemblance to the adult individual, but its behavior is still larva-like for a while, as it does little except basic metabolic functions and growth.) Despite being adapted to act as a host to the parasitic larvae, the female retains all other human functions. We feel that this cannot be emphasized too strongly. The female will perform a wide range of functions, for all purposes the same as the male, which by default invests almost nothing in the procreation.

From this follows another astounding feature: Procreation is a distributed task. The great majority of females act as host to at least one offspring during their lifetime, while extremely few have as many as twenty. There are no other adult forms than fertile female and fertile male. And the fertile female does the same tasks as the fertile male, with the addition of hosting offspring.

It is not that a more normal form of sexual reproduction does not exist on the planet. Several highly successful small lifeforms have centralized reproduction with specialized forms for different tasks, and with most of the individuals incapable of reproduction. But in an unusual example of natural extravaganza, the human species consists virtually entirely of fertile individuals (barring a few random mutations) and half of these again are heavily modified for an invasive, dangerous, painful mode of reproduction. Despite this, the species has survived to a level of at least partial sentience.

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There is no competition among larvae. Even at the earliest stage, the number of zygotes is indicative of the number of offspring, usually one or two. In a minority of cases, one of two larvae dies at an early stage of development, but this seems to be entirely caused by genetic defects and not by being killed and eaten by the other larva.

Because they have so few offspring, humans (and indeed mammals in general) are fiercely protective of them. Humans do not allow the offspring to compete to death with others or to prove themselves in a natural environment, but take care of them all the way until the offspring is also ready to reproduce, sometimes even further! The bond between a "mother" and "child" is extremely strong and a fundamental part of human psychology – perhaps THE fundamental part. In a majority of cases, the male parent ("father") also takes an interest in the survival of the offspring, but as it is not adapted to supply nourishment through its body, the male is normally more of a guardian and teacher. It will also often bring usable objects to the female, including food, but this is not strictly necessary. The females are fully mobile and able to secure food and shelter for themselves and the childs.

A mother and child living together is called a "family", and is a basic unit of the human species. There can be more than one child in a family, and one father if the mother wishes this, which it usually does. The family acts as an intermediate level between the individual and the society, unlike species with centralized reproduction where the society is the family. Because a family is too small and incomplete to function as a society of its own, it fulfills a very different role which is not comparable to what you find in other species. It is essential to the survival of the immature human, but too small to provide a full socialization. The young human very gradually makes the transition from being simply part of a family to becoming fully a part of society in its own right. More often than not, a human is part of its mother's family until it is ready to reproduce and start a family of its own. Families can in this way be chained, or combined into larger family groups.

It is possible that the first human societies have developed from such extended families, but by far the majority of humans now live in large societies where relationship is of little importance. Then again, the human species is very young and all of them are closely related. As you will see from our illustrations, they all look the same, except for small details in color or size.

The organization into families seems rational, given the unusual mode of reproduction. However, bear in mind that humans are not guided by reason, which has more of a supporting role. The process that binds humans together in this basic unit is instinctive, and is in itself unusual to say the least. We intend to cover this further in a later report.