I am unpersuaded by Sam Shuster's theory on why men fart more than women:
Could extreme fear have launched a fart from the primitive hunter of sufficient intensity to delay, if not repel, an attack from a dangerous beast? And was the associated odour, no doubt developed for this purpose, on a par with the repulsive efficacy of the skunk? The selective evolutionary advantage to a successful hunter of a loud repulsive fart is easily understood.
Of course, it occurs to me that such a hunter, prone to sonorous, malodorous flatulence, can hardly include stealth in his armoire of skills. He may indeed put himself at a "selective evolutionary" disadvantage to a more successful hunter possessed with the modicum of continence sufficient to stalk and kill his prey without startling the creature.
A "just-so story" par excellence - I almost took the guy seriously for a moment.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite | January 26, 2004 at 11:17 PM
Hello, Frank.
I'm unpersuaded too. First, because we do not have a way of knowing which sex farted more during the Paleolithic and the Neolithic which, together, comprise more than 95% of human history.
On the other hand, we know that, before the invention of agriculture, men (since they were the hunters and were stronger too) were much more likely to eat large quantities of animal protein than women, who were left with vegetable substitutes. Now, farting is associated mainly with the nitrates contained in leguminous plants such as beans, which are one possible secondary source of proteins. If a larger part of the diet of women consisted of this kind of vegetables than in the case of men, then probably for most of homo sapiens sapiens' existence the female of the species was the farter par excellence.
It may happen that, with time, men overtook them in this competition, but that's probably more related to social than natural causes: men show off, they urinate in public and in many societies it is considered a "macho" thing to impose oneself with one's body noises and smells, something that doesn't seem to happen among women. In other words: men fart to each other in order to signal to the weaker ones that they'll have to put up with his smell.
Finally, as the ancient Indo-European ethimology of "to fart" means "to break wind", it is also possible that as soon as women discovered articulate language they weren't left with enough compressed air inside themselves to fart as often as men.
Posted by: nelson ascher | January 27, 2004 at 04:09 AM
Ever wonder why mounted huntsmen with hounds generally prefer to chase foxes rather than hares ? It's because foxes, as anyone who has ever tried to domesticate one knows, fart incessantly, whereas hares don't.
Moreover, dogs are inveterate arse-sniffers.
So when you see hounds haring (so to speak) after a fox, it's the delicious flavour of fox-fart that keeps them going, while the hares hide silent, odourless and ignored in the bushes.
I've no idea what evolutionary advantage farting gives the fox, but maybe it attracts the vixens.
Did perhaps the farts of Paleolithic and the Neolithic man similarly attract women (the little vixens) ? I've no idea. But sadly it doesn't seem to work today.
Posted by: Tony Allwright | January 27, 2004 at 10:25 AM
Perhaps, Nelson, the flatulence-inducing diet selected for females a more discreet method of emission?
A female who was capable of silently relieving the discomfort of trapped gas without immediately identifying herself as the source, would be at an undoubted evolutionary advantage in seeking a mate over a female less inclined to discretion.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | January 27, 2004 at 10:40 AM
Sorry for taking so long in answering, but I was on my way to Brazil.
Yes, I think you might be right, particularly if we consider that in primitive/tribal societies there was little or no privacy at all: people were together most of the time in a cave or in a camp around the fire and, thus, the only way they had to identify the source of the mephitic emissions was probably through the sound made by these. If there was no sound, no positive identification was possible. On the other hand, there's the possibility that for tens of thousands of years our species has been losing its olfative expertise. Isn't it possible that during the paleolithic someone's fart was as easily recognizeble as looks or voices are nowadays? I can imagine a Cro-Magnon woman smelling around the camp, feeling the familiar scent of a fart and saying: oh, I see, my husband's back from the hunt and I also feel that, contrary to the shaman's advice, he has been eating mammoth meat again.
Posted by: nelson ascher | February 02, 2004 at 01:14 AM