Talk:Four Fs (evolution)

I know nothing about the history of the 4Fs; someone please fill in original quote etc and expand to talk about what they are. Sai Emrys  ¿?   ✍  07:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Fourth F
Please could someone also explain what word meaning to mate, to reproduce or to procreate begins with an F. Please don't give me the obvious, vulger response to this questions.


 * Quite simple: it's a standard, tongue in cheek joke, used in context where saying "fight, flee, feed, fuck" would be inappropriate. If ya don't like the word 'fuck', well, that's why it's usually listed as "fight, flee, feed, mate". ;) The alliterative pattern is somewhat obvious. Sai Emrys   ¿?   ✍  01:55, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need to cater to America's weird issue with swear words ? It's like there are many other forms of vulgarity or violence being broadcast everyday in the USA... --86.233.90.210 (talk) 20:06, 14 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Also, the obvious, vulgar response is so far as I an many others know, the correct one: vulgarity does not trump reality. In particular, whenever you say 'feeding, fighting, fleeing and... sexual reproduction', it's patently obvious that the last one is a euphemism for 'fucking', even to friends who wouldn't dare use the word 'fucking' in any form of conversation.  Political-correctness-gone-mad may try to use the word 'fornication' as an acceptable equivalent, but few people use the word 'fornication' when referring to sex in everyday life (for example, have you ever heard of the phrase 'fornicate me' used between two lovers during the act of sex?), but many do use the words 'fuck' and 'fucking'.  (Linguistically, the practical usage of the words 'fuck' and 'fucking' cannot be uniformly replaced with something else, and despite the attitudes of some, it has a well-established set of roles in the English language, see Wikipedia page on 'Fuck' for more.) John Allsup (talk) 09:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm surprised no one has brought up that 'fornication' specifically refers to consensual sex between an unmarried man or woman. It is a human-specific term. The "F" in the 4F's may not refer to consensual sex (for one) and certainly has nothing to do with marriage. Using "fornication" here in this Wikipedia page makes no sense, and I would like to see a reference justifying the use of "fornication." &mdash;TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 06:51, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

I noticed this expression in an article titled Emotions: from robot to brain by Arbib (2004) which names A review of theory in physiological psychology by Pribram (1960) as its source. The latter article does indeed name these four drives (although calls the last one simply sex instead of reproduction) but does designate them as The Four Fs. Jelmervdl (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Possible citation
A possible citation can be found here:

http://gregorsworld.blogspot.com/2008/07/four-of-biology-are.html

Which gives the following reference:

Pribram, Karl H. (1960). A review of theory in physiological psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 11, 1-40. See pages 11 and 13.

with link here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=nU0TAAAAIAAJ

I don't have easy access to this source. Perhaps someone can check it and if it checks out, add the information to the article.


 * I've added several better references (removing, for better or worst, the link to Google Books). Pribram's 1958 reference (which is available at his website) actually refers to early papers in the 50's that may also use this list. I have yet to look into them, but Karl H. Pribram seems to be one of the handful of authors to first coin this list (which I still hear used today in behavioral ecology talks). &mdash;TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 20:09, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I just read the article and the citations seemed to be adequate. Can I remove the maintenance template, since there are no "citation needed"s to indicate what part of the article is lacking? Gsnerd (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * There definitely needs to be a citation if "fornication" is left in. See note above. The fourth F is not "fornication", and using "fornication" makes no sense. Fornication has a very human-specific meaning. &mdash;TedPavlic (talk/contrib/@) 06:52, 11 March 2018 (UTC)