Theory of mind & Religion

Reinventing the wheel is hard, reusing it is easy.

Humans made sophisticated tools during the early stone age. The next generation had to learn the necessary techniques. Teaching was required. The human eye became white allowing one to accurately guess focus and attention of pupils. Moreover, early humans collaboratively defended their group against predators in the savannah. Knowing how others react makes a defense more successful. Humans developed the ability called theory of mind. Small toddlers recognise, when they don't know how to proceed and request the attention of their parents. Preschoolers understand how the mind of others work. Understanding patterns and anticipating reactions payed off.

When the wind picks up speed and the sky turns grey, it was advisable to return to one's cave. Again, it was useful to recognise the patterns. Humans had learned how to do that with respect to other humans, assuming a mind to recognize was all it required. Reusing the recently acquired theory of mind is much simpler than inventing science from scratch. Thunder and lightning were soon associated with Thor. Interacting with other humans is the norm, hence early humans tried to enter negotiations with the deities. Sacrificing an ox in order to gain goodwill might be just that. 

At first, there were deities for each and every phenomenon. Then, it turned out that there is a connection between everything - all the gods were replaced by the assumed superior creator, the single god most people worship. When people resort to made by god  in the lack of a scientific explanation, they are applying the older and more developed mental model, which in addition is accessible to intuition. Science is a recent human invention and quite often intuitively inaccessible - moreover it requires learning, while the theory of mind is acquired during early childhood.

The gods became obsolete, because humans do no longer need the theory of mind to understand nature - they have science instead.

Evolution of pedophilia

Many are accused of normalizing pedophilia, as it could be normalized. Pedophilia is normal and has been normal through the evolution of mankind. Evolution is not a myth either, and everything that evolution created is normal.

It started around 1.8 million years ago, when the first human brain size increase happened. The forest disappeared and with it the safety of tree branches. Big cats preyed onto the ancestors who had to survive in the resulting savannah. The ancestors had to live in bigger groups or die alone. Major obstacles to living in larger groups are fear and aggression. Hence, our ancestors had to get rid of these two.

The famous russian silver fox experiment did just that. They collected wild foxes from fur farms for the breeding experiment. Only the 10% friendliest foxes were selected for the next generation. Due to this rigorous selection they obtained domesticated foxes after few decades. Something similar happened to our ancestors, and it is called self-domestication. Any preferential treatment of those less aggressive exerts the same selective pressure as the selection by the experimenters, albeit at a much lesser magnitude.

As Belyaev (he started the russian silver fox experiment) noticed, domestication has a destabilizing effect. The timing of developmental processes is disturbed and leads to neoteny. The socialization period gets extended and the fear instinct manifests itself at a much later time or not at all. Evolution up to that point had endowed our ancestors with a range of instincts. They functioned like hard-wired methods for solving the challenges the individual encounters in a typical life. Then, domestication weakened all instincts. That poses both a problem and an opportunity. The hard-wired instincts had to be replaced by learned behavior. Domesticated animals lose the ability to tackle wildlife problems, since food and shelter is provided by humans. On the other side, they learn to interact with humans.

Solitary animals are aggressive to every other animal except to the opposite sex during mating season. The mating instinct kicks in and the love hormone oxytocin prevents aggression. Like a reflex the characteristics of the opposite sex cause a sexual arousal. This instinct too gets weakened during domestication. Attraction to a large degree gets learned during childhood. Some say that men are replacing their mothers with wives. The truth to it is that children have learned to deal with a certain personality and later in life tend to find partners that match this personality. This works by an erotization of clues that indicate a comforting environment.

However, living without instincts is not possible. There has to be a mechanism in place that starts the learning process. Moreover, not everything can be learned or is teached. Belyaev noticed that about 30 to 40% of is female fox population failed to breed or did not show maternal care to the litter. Does this sound familiar? Clearly, domestication process has gone too far in those foxes and they lost a necessary instinct.

Is there a mechanism in place that prevents the loss of necessary instincts? It happens, but no on a personal level. If the mating instinct fails to manifest, then it means the end to the genes of that person. Evolution pushes mankind to have less and less instinct until some have less than necessary. They are not forced towards the opposite sex and the erotization happens to other clues of comforting company. Let's be honest, the company of children is refreshing. Who doesn't like children?

Are pedophiles sick?

No! They are normal, but not average. Nobel prize winners are normal, but not average with respect to intelligence. Pedophiles are not average with respect to sexual desire. Nothing causes pedophilia. Something causes heterosexuality.

The sexual desire in average people is driven by innate behavior (instinct), it is said that the sexual instinct is the strongest in humans. But humans are losing instincts in the course of evolution.

If one gets food poisoning, it affects the inner ear. The horizon does not move before our eyes as our ears indicate. That is how we feel the effects of food poisoning, and we become nauseated and throw up. On a ship, when we lose the horizon and the felt movements do not correspond to our vision, our body recognized food poisoning and we throw up. When we sit on an airplane and the airplane starts moving without any outside view indicating it, some people get panic and try to leave the place. Some innate behavior is good, while others like fear of flying affects us negatively. Hence, during evolution we got less and less affected by innate behavior and had to replace the guiding effect of innate behavior by learned behavior - we got intelligent.

During puberty, average boys start feeling a very strong attraction towards same aged girls. Girls experience something like that too, where they get flattered by the strange attraction of boys. Average boys start behaving irrationally, ignoring advices and prohibitions. Everybody says they should concentrate on their studies, pals demand them to spend time with them. Parents are concerned wrt. STD's ... And they do sexting, because they might score. These are the effect of a strong mating instinct. Every unexplainable consistent irrational behavior probably is an instinct. The human brain has evolved and many processes have been broken down into smaller pieces. The mating instinct probably now is a combination of an attraction and an erotization part. 

In pedophiles, the mating instinct seems to have become too weak. Prenatal insults can prevent the manifestation of innate behavior (instincts). Boys are supposed to play in a certain way, also called gender conform. They should prefer certain toys, and if they do not, chances are that they become homosexuals (or other paraphilic). All MRI studies find something that is not average in pedophiles and similar. They also have found non-average responses in hormones. Pedophiles are not average, pretty much like the overly intelligent nobel prize winners. But they are normal!

With respect to the sexual mating instinct, pedophiles are on the low end of the distribution - just like stupid people, or short people. When pedophiles start loving someone, it was someone whose company was comforting. The problem with society is, that they have made this love impossible. The more distance they put between pedophiles and the children they love, the less they see them as subjects with a personality and more as sexual lust objects. If all you want is to put your dick in a bum, then you have gone the whole mile and lost out on the refreshing company of children.

Not all pedophile-labeled people are like this. There are antisocial psychopath who kill children. There are dads and stepdads who don't get enough of the love they need from their wives. There are arrogant men who travel to third world countries to buy child sex, because money buys everything.

Cross-wiring in the brain of pedophiles

There is this "common consensus" among "experts" that the brain of pedophiles is cross wired. In the last paper by Cantor et al, the authors say that there is no "disconnection", but a "dysconnection". Right. Or are they wrong? The "experts" claim the following. If a "normal" person sees a child, the parental love is activated. But in a pedophile, it is the sexual love instead.

Ok, there are studies using functional MRI's and they report differences. I have also seen a meta-study where they listed all those studies and listed which regions were activated in pedophiles - there was not much consistency to see. This could be a case of p-value hacking, which i discussed earlier.

Back to the "common consensus" of cross-wiring, how much truth is there to this assumption? Is there really an activation of something completely different in parents than in pedophiles? That is what cross-wiring implies, or am i wrong?

What are the chances that evolution created a sexual love system and completely separated parental love? Testosterone, oestrogen, adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are the usual suspects for love hormones or the cocktail of them. Some say it is a myth that mothers get sexual aroused by breastfeeding their children. But it is oxytocin that controls the milk let down. One treatment option for social interaction orders involves a nasal spray containing oxytocin. Just by reading the article about oxytocin, one understands that there are no two separate love systems, there is only one. So what is parental love, then?

I have read several accounts of boy- and girllovers, who did not feel any sexual attraction to their own children. However, the friends of their children had the usual effects. The reason for that is the Westermarck effect. It renders long known acquaintances sexually inattractive. Is parental love the same as sexual love, but with brakes put on by the Westermarck effect? I think so. From an evolutionary points, it makes sense to reuse an existing system and to add some inhibitors to it than to evolve a brand new system for offspring caring.

Moreover, it makes sense to loose sexual interest in a person after getting to know him/her for a long time. In former times children of age 7 were supposed to fend for themselves, coincidentally the seventh year is also the one with the most breakups in marriages. Love hormones make us befriend a complete stranger. The own kids are around from day one, not exactly being strangers. This is another reason, why parents don't feel a sexual attraction, they are already close to their children. If they have not been close to their children, genetic sexual attraction happens, just think of oedipus.

So, what exactly is this cross-wiring talk about if there is nothing to cross?

Pedophilia for dummies

First of all: Nobody makes the conscious decision to become a pedophile.

Think of the children!

This slogan is enough to mobilize and justify any action against pedophiles. Public figures demand actions to cope with the assumed pandemic. Some even demand that every pedophile be put to death - more or less merciful. If you still blame pedophiles for their "sick lifestyle", here is a question for you: Why would anyone want to be a pedophile? Trust me, it's not a desirable destiny. Do you really think that someone would choose that life?

Few are bothered to question the nature of pedophilia and what is causing it. When pedophiles are hunted, stigmatized and persecuted in the manner they are, it is obvious that this is not a choice.

Are they born this way?

The argument "we are born that way" has been used by homosexuals to demand acceptance of homosexual love. It is not really an explanation, because it raises the question, why are some born this way? Together with "It's a sexual orientation" it is more of an activist slogan than a scientific explanation. The best current explanation is that something went wrong during the development. There is some evidence that it starts very early - even before birth.

Think of it like a train derailment. There are tracks, which the train is supposed to ride on. And then there are obstacles and defects that can cause the train to leave the tracks. So, what went wrong with pedophiles? If we start asking about something "wrong", we should know what is "right". Hence, what is it that goes right in most people? What happens in people that don't turn out to be pedophiles? It is kind of an obvious mystery, since most people don't spend much time thinking about stuff that comes natural.

Sexual development - what is it exactly?

Imagine that you are a normal boy heading for a straight heterosexual orientation. A "normal" boy plays with certain toys, later he plays football/soccer with other boys. At first, girls are icky and boys are afraid of catching girl cooties, with Valentine's day being an exception. However, something strange happens during puberty - boys are starting to behave irrationally. Parents told us to wait with it, teachers are against it, even pals are complaining that we spend less time with them. Nonetheless, spending time with a girl becomes important on it's own.

Because "everyone" has this attraction, this is kind of normal and nobody is questioning it. Is it culture, or is it the expectation of others that drives "normal" boys to try to get the attention of girls again and again? If it were just a search for friendship, then we would see a 50/50 distribution of boy/girl and boy/boy couples. There are even fewer obstacles for a boy to befriend another boy than to befriend a girl.

Actually, several things are already known. Gay men tend to have more older brothers. There are hypotheses that explain how the influence happens, developed antibodies in the mother being the current favorite explanation. Gender atypical behavior during childhood is considered to be an indicator for later homosexuality. The latter statement is remarkable. Not only does it state a deviation from "the norm", it also states that certain behavior is "the norm" for a boy. Already as little boys, their behavior is supposed to follow some invisible tracks.

Gender typical behavior - but why?

Stripping "gender" from the question, we could ask: What causes a typical behavior? Some behavior is so common typical that we have named them. Fear of flying is an example. As soon as the airplane starts moving, those affected freak out. In a rational discussion outside the plane, they will agree that the fear is irrational and somewhat silly. But that does not matter once the airplane starts moving. It is a consistent innate behavior very difficult to override. This is not an exception.

Human behavior follows certain patterns, this is the very base of psychology. If we were able to just snap out of a depression, we wouldn't need psychiatric institutions. Often, we need to become aware, how much trouble a certain behavior will cause and we need help to avoid or handle those situations.

If we were animals, we would simply call it instincts. Many animals are born with a fully developed set of instincts. This is not the case with a human baby. Unlike a baby deer, it does not get up within a few hours after birth and follows the mother around. A human baby resembles more a fetus than a preteen child during the first year. Some animals can walk a few hours after birth and instinctively follow the flock. For most animals, instincts are like solid railway tracks guiding their behavior. They are so controlled by their instincts, that a lion jumping through a burning hoop is a circus sensation.

Instincts are considered to be non-existing in humans, since we are in general able to override them. This is taken to the extreme by the assumption that humans have a free will. The example of the fear of flying shows that this obviously is not the case. Few million years ago, our ancestors certainly had instincts and those instincts didn't disappear suddenly. And they haven't completely vanished. 

How little instincts do we need?

Humans are superior to animals, because we can think and decide on a rational base what actions to take. That is the theory, in praxis we quite often behave in a certain manner that we are not aware of. Sometimes it is good for us, otherwise it can present an obstacle like the fear of flying. The fewer irrational behavior we are forced to act out, the better it is for us.

Instincts are in a way hard-wired knowledge how to behave in certain situations. Without hard-wired instincts, the appropriate behavior has to be learned. The freedom from instincts not only requires us to make rational decisions, but also allows us to adjust them in order to get anticipated outcomes. Without guiding instincts and learned knowledge, we are doomed to make stupid decisions. Hence, loosing instincts is not only an advantage, but it is a liability too. Using trial and error, we learned what was best for our survival. Hence, those with a lesser amount of instincts had a greater learning potential. This presents an evolutionary advantage leading to a higher survival rate for human genes.

Animals have instincts to a varying degree. Reptiles have a primitive brain and are completely instinct controlled. The higher up on the evolutionary stage the animals are, the less they are controlled by instincts and more able to learn things. It is no surprise that most trained animals are mammals.

Animals living in a stable environment tends to show very little variations. It is almost impossible to tell two penguins apart. Animals living in a changing environment show a greater variation. Individuals that are better adapted to a change will ensure the survival of the species, while the unfortunate die. Over time this will lead to a higher variation of individual characteristics in those species, which represents a higher flexibility. This is the reason for the noticeable individual characteristics among humans. Some of us are born with stronger instincts and have to suffer from fear of flying or similar compulsive behavior, while others enjoy a higher degree of free will.

How does evolution know where to stop?

It doesn't. Well, evolution does not stop before it is too late. Evolution is not about the survival of species or to make individuals comfortable in their environment, but about the survival of DNA. Humans are pushed by evolution towards the edge of losing all instincts, and due to the variation some are pushed over the edge. Those, who were too far on the other side, would not pass down their DNA. Evolution comes with a price tag attached, the dead end of an DNA-line. It is like a tree, where only few branches are allowed to continue to grow, while others are cut back.

As it seems, a certain minimal amount of instincts is necessary for procreation. Boys need to find girls. That is why boys start to behave irrationally during puberty, even when they were angel-like to their parents during previous years. The current society makes it  hard for them: child sexuality is not encouraged and abstinence-only sex education is on the program in some countries. Hence, the instinct of chasing girls meets a lot of obstacles, experiences headwind. 

Should we expect everyone to develop a "normal" heterosexual orientation? Some think that gender is a social construct and feminists claim men and women to be equal. Moreover, many romantics claim that it was the personality that attracted them to their spouse. If the existence of a vagina or penis is that insignificant, shouldn't we be equally attracted to men and women? I mean, if we downplay the importance of the gender/sex, shouldn't we see like a 50% prevalence of homosexuality?

Evolution does not like 50% homosexuality, it is simply not sustainable. It would mean that 50% of the genes are pushed over the edge and are not passed down. During the evolution humans lost much of the intensity of instincts. The behavior became more and more rational and that was an advantage. This also meant that the gender of the significant other half became less important. We are more attracted to the personality than to the outlook of intercourse. At the same time, sex became more versatile than just as a means to procreation. Intimacy creates strong social bonds. Hence, evolution drove humans away from the 100% heterosexuality towards a point where the advantage of free will is balanced by procreation failure.

So what went wrong in pedophiles?

Nothing! Everything went according to the plan. That means the plan of evolution. Evolution does not care about individuals, only about the survival of genes. Individuals are just a means for procreation. Fish have many thousand offsprings, most end up being prey for others. For evolution it is ok that just enough individuals make it into adulthood. 

Flexibility was and is a necessity for humans. In order to adapt to the changing environment, we show rather big differences between individuals, we are taller or shorter, we have different skin colour, and we lost much of the control instincts had over our behavior. Variance is part of the evolutionary game. This means also variance in the strength of certain instincts, among them the instinct that drives boys towards girls during puberty.

To be honest, this post is actually "paraphilia for dummies" - i never talked why pedophiles prefer the company of children. Most think it is for sexual gratification only, but this is wrong. The company of children averts aggression of bullies, children are very emotional and might satisfy the demands of someone with a more intense emotional life. There are in fact many reasons why adults turn towards children and turn the back to adults. The current stigmatization is one of them. Children don't judge someone based on media incited hysteria, they judge people according to their actions.

Neoteny, gut feeling, and dwindling human instincts

Human have a free will, right? My gut feeling tells me no. The field of psychology is a science that figures out what makes humans tick. If humans had a free will, we would just snap out of a deep depression and be happy at will. Psychologist wouldn't have a job to go to. It simply does not work that way. There is even a book about the science of fear. It shows how gut feeling interferes with rational thinking and even leads to riskier behavior.

The human gut feeling are the remains of fully functional instincts. Instincts guide behavior in animals, the perceived situation triggers one or another response. Reflexes are more simpler, sensory input leads to a motoric action. Instincts are like an advanced version of it.

Instincts are good for animals, but not so good for humans. We live in a more complicated world, where our actions should not solely be guided by gut feelings. As mentioned in the book, our gut feeling might be a disadvantage. In difference to animals, humans possess rational thinking, which leads to better outcomes.

Neoteny is an explanation for the dwindling human instincts. While most animals are born with a fully myelinated brain, humans are not. Those animals join the flock after a short rest following birth and show instinctive behavior. Newborn humans show few reflexes and very few instincts.

Neoteny works by slowing down maturation of the affected parts up to the point of standstill. The processes responsible for development simply work at a slower speed. Myelination of the human brain does not happen in uterus, it takes many years of human life. During this time, we learn how to cope with the challenges our environment throws at us, and we develop strategies for survival. Those strategies can work along with our instincts or work against them.

Neoteny appeared due to evolution. This means the maturation processes were faster in some individuals, and slower in others. Those small variations are enough to give an advantage to the ones going into the right direction. Moreover, not all maturation processes are slowed down equally. Compared with chimpanzees the body needs like 3 times the amount to mature, while the brain needs several more times.

Rebellion during the teenage years are a good example for instincts. The irrational behavior is exactly that: irrational. It often is attributed to raging hormones, but is better explained by instincts. The orientation towards age peers and conforming to their pressure is more important than obedience to parents. Even more important is the attraction towards the opposite sex. Parents might forbid it and age peers might ridicule one, nevertheless the opposite sex must be conquered. Some teenagers are more obsessed with it than others. This is so irrational, that instincts must be responsible for that. We all know how teenagers behave who were gifted with more than the usual amount of teenagers instincts.

Those, who have a lesser amount of teenage instincts, will behave according to the learned norms and conform to requests. Since the current society wants to keep adolescents immature for a prolonged time, those children will stay children. Stunted psychological or emotional development is real. There are several theories why this happens, but i'm missing the role instincts play. One very important instinct is the heterosexual mating instinct. If that one does not manifest, then the genes don't make it into the next generation. This is the disadvantage that evolution uses to stop the dwindling instincts from disappearing altogether.

Since i'm always seeking the connection to pedophilia, this is no exception. Quite too often i found on the internet the notion that boylovers see themselves as emotionally young. One even wrote that it is tiring to pretend to be an adult all the time. If one feels himself as a teenaged boy, one probably is stunted in his emotional development. It might be as simple as this. The heterosexual mating instinct is too weak in pedophiles. The obstacles for a normal heterosexual relationships offer too much a resistance for this instinct to overcome. Those obstacles might come in different forms. Sometimes the family environment is diametral to the romantic advances of the child, sometimes it is just missed opportunities. Common factor is the absence of "raging hormones".

Dark matters

My blog isn't going as expected. Writing posts is hard. I get more ideas than i manage to write down. I mean not only writing down, but making a nice easy to read post out of it. I've read a bit about disorganized thinking and when i read what i have written, it pretty much looks like it. My thoughts are jumping back and forth. It is an advantage when thinking, but not when i want to communicate my ideas.

I admire those, who can write well and everybody seems to get the points across. So far i have not found out what is more important, the easy reading or the points. I'm writing this blog because i don't want the results of my quest get lost. So i'm pretty much focusing on the points. However, the one post that has been read the most, was written in an inspirational moment.

You already know that i want to find out all there is to know about pedophilia. My way of disorganized thinking, where my thoughts easily jump light years from fact to fact, makes it a surprising adventure, at least for me. The ideas do i get from reading as much as i can, from as many different fields as possible. I don't think that pedophilia can be fully explained using one field of science only. Too much different stuff seems to be involved.

The puzzle

They way i think resembles a puzzle game. I'm trying to keep an overview and are turning pieces here and there. Actually i'm all over the board and are connecting pieces and tearing them apart again where ever i'm looking at. Some researchers start with research questions like: What is the cause of pedophilia? The problem with questions like that are the hidden assumptions. The previous question assumes the existence of a cause that "creates" pedophilia in one way or another.  Moreover, it focuses on pedophilia. This might lead to a dead end. Imagine a game of dice, where we only investigate the outcomes of 6 eyes. What causes the dice to turn up with 6 eyes? When assembling a puzzle, one does not start with any question, one merely examines the bits and connects them.

More often than not, i'm trying to write about it when the picture is not finished. I do so, because the picture becomes bigger all the time and it's probably never finished. My picture is basically multi-dimensional, but for my blog, all thoughts have to be put into a linear order. This is the hard part.

Evolution

As a older teenager, i learned about pederasty of the ancient Greeks, but that was all i knew until last year. The Decent of Chester story enticed me to think along its lines. The story is a nice read, but has obvious flaws. However, it points out a major common mistake - the chronocentric approach. One might not be able to explain pedophilia using  current settings. Hence, my first question was: Would pedophilia  made sense 5000 years ago? Another mistake is forgetting that current human behavior is strongly regulated by moral and laws. A personal observation questioned the sexual nature of pedophilia.

Evolution is often misunderstood. The goal of human evolution is not a society where each person lives in comfort. There are many, "who have made it", who are considered "successful"; but who are not willing to reproduce. This thinking is turned upside down. The goal of evolution is not to provide humans with a nice live, but to ensure that genes get replicated. Taking it to the extreme, if "white trailer park trash" people fornicate like rabbits, then they are evolutionarily superior. Our personal judgement might differ from what evolution prefers.

Another mistake is to assume that evolution has any goals or that there are any reasons for everything. Nothing is selected for because it might be beneficial in the end. Evolution does not think, it only is brutally preferring the one with advantage, might that advantage be as tiny as possible. After writing almost 2 paragraphs, i realized my mistake. Evolution does not prefer anything - it's not a conscious presence or a thing. Evolution is more like a law of nature dictating, which genes survive.

One of the next blog posts i have in mind is about some kind of pedophilia and it's role in human evolution. An earlier piece turned out to be wrong, so i have to make sure that i'm not missing the obvious signs of mistakes. But another appearing piece is a shade darker.

Psychology and Neoteny

Human psychology has one common denominator - the human. Therefore everything is linked to everything else. So i'm not completely wrong, if i see connections everywhere. The question is: Does a certain connection matter? To make the matter worse, in psychology there is no clear cause and effect. Often the assumed effect has influence on what is claimed to be the cause. Hence, i'm trying to visualize those pieces as part of a network. Everybody has heard of evil cycles, and that might be a good approximation. If the feedback is strong enough, then some loop becomes active and a phenomenon can be observed.

Psychology gets even more interesting, when put into connection with the evolution of humans and the human brain. This stuff called neoteny has a huge impact. Coming to that conclusion, i tweeted:

The discussion of #pedophilia must include #neoteny. Neoteny has more influence on psychology than one might think.

This tweet got me over 20 times more impressions than i have followers. Somehow it hit a nerve and got me thinking more about neoteny. Humans are sometimes called the juvenile ape (that is what neoteny is about). Now, that makes humans some kind of a super breed. Neoteny in humans must have been selected for and probably still is. This evolutionarily pressure might have some side effects. Breeders of dogs know that too much of selection for a certain trait can ruin the offspring. If sexual orientation is indeed neotenous, then it might be fragile. Following that train of thoughts gets me into the darker areas of the bigger picture.

Should i avoid the darker sides? I already got the advice to do it. Dealing with those dark matters might lead to self-hate and depression. That is true. Avoiding the darker side might make me more happy, but i know that it is an illusion. Once i set out on my quest, i feel obligated to consider all aspects.

Faulty neoteny

Humans mature much later than they should. Our closest cousins in the animal kingdom are adults by age 7 or 8. Human maturity is much delayed. There are adults suffering from the Highlander-syndrome, who never grow up. Those are the extreme cases, but everybody knows somebody who looks much younger than their age. Not only do they look much younger, they give the impression to be younger on an emotional level. Something is either responsible for either that or absent. In an earlier post i wrote: "Sometimes, things are not caused, but rather not prevented." Here, a faulty mechanism might be at work (or lazy).

In Sexual orientation or what is wrong with dogs? i came to the understanding of sexual orientation as based on neotenous attachment. Most people are looking for love, not just sex. It seems, one needs to have the right dosage of neoteny to get it right. Too low a dosage and one behaves like an animal when it comes to sex. But what happens, if one got a dosage that is too high? 

Maturation in youths is accompanied by a brain development process called myelination. Simply put, the axons of nerves get a fatty insulation. This process is thought to be initiated or controlled by sexual hormones, for which the HPG axis is responsible. There are some studies showing that this axis does not work properly in homosexuals and pedophiles. If this dysfunction has any influence on the myelination, then the question arises: How is the missing white matter related? Is it the fatty insulation that should have showed up on those sMRI pictures?

Evolution formed humans as juvenile apes, driving the neotenous features to an extreme. In some sense humans are driven onto an edge, some are pushed over. The best racing cars in Formula 1 have engines that only hold one race. If engineers had their way, they should break down the second the car crosses the finish line. It is the same with the tyres, if one can finish the race with the current set, one should not enter the box for a change. Humans mature at an age several times older than our cousins. With our high maintenance brain humans are very much the fragile Formula 1 cars of nature. Part of the entertainment in Formula 1 is the anticipated event of breakdowns, the question is which team is the unlucky one. 

  

Paranoia

Some pedophiles hope that science eventually will find out the reason for pedophilia and that this will end the stigmatization. Sometimes this hope seems to be delusional. There have already been published books like Feierman or articles by Bruce Rind. They tend to be ignored by the media and public or cause an outcry. The actions in the USA don't leave much hope that science will help. 

When i'm in the mood for conspiracy thought, i can imagine that the cause of pedophilia is already known. But those involved in research need their funding. Publishing the final result will ultimately make that field of research obsolete. What are those researchers gonna do? Flipping burgers?