Evangelical Christians Have a Tough Choice

Ardi's Secret: Did Early Humans Start Walking for Sex?

Among Ardipithecus's ancestors, such a strategy could catch on if searching for food required a lot of time and exposure to predators. Males would be far more successful food-providers if they had their hands free to carry home loads of fruits and tubers—which would favor walking on two legs. Females would come to prefer good, steady providers with smaller canines over the big fierce-toothed ones who left as soon as they spot another fertile female. The results, says Lovejoy, are visible in Ardipithecus, which had small canines even in males and walked upright.

Lovejoy's explanation for the origin of bipedalism thus comes down to the monogamous pair bond. Far from being a recent evolutionary innovation, as many people assume, he believes the behavior goes back all the way to near the beginning of our lineage some six million years ago.

Evangelicals now have a tough choice in front of them. They can either accept this scientific theory that supports their supposed love of heterosexual monogamy or dismiss it in favor of their darling creationism.