How did mankind ever work out 'where babies come from'???

[RememberToPlaywiththeKids]

Seriously - 9 months from sex to bubs - how did anyone ever work out the cause and effect??

Mme Lindt - I've wondered that too!

I've also wondered who thought 'I'll take that sandy stuff, get it REALLY hot, flatten it out and stick in that gap in my hut and I'll be able to see out but not get draughty'

Goodnight Blinder.

Yes, JM. We really do need a [choc]

See, this is why sites like Wikipedia and others are so dangerous and addictive. I'll start by looking up one thing (like who came up with glass, or coffee, or cheese) and before I know it I have a million windows open looking up all the mysteries of the universe!

By the way, blinder, I'm sorry you feel I've been goading you. I haven't been, actually, nor was it my intention. I didn't like the tone of your posts and said so. That is all.

Mme, next petition to MNHQ? :o

Trinaluce, I've already speculated that you can burn coal came from observing wildfire in a coal seam on the surface, so I'll expand that to glass being discovered as a result of a similar wildfire on a coal seam near the coast.

"that we discovered that you can burn coal"...

Knitting. I love doing it, but how did anyone come up with that? It's something I've always wondered.

Perhaps someone creative was sitting in front of the fire, twirling bits of his fleece cloak, and realised that he could make long stringy bits, and it sort of developed from there.

A good few years ago - pre sex-ed in schools anyway - my grandmother was approached by a youngish work colleague who wanted to ask her advice on a personal matter. She told my gran that she and her husband had been trying for a baby for quite a while but nothing was happening, and as my grandparents had been successful several times she wondered if she had any tips. It took a while for my gran to establish what the problem was, but it was pretty fundamental. They had been trying to conceive...

...via the bellybutton!

Maybe instinct isn't all it's cracked up to be...

I used to work with someone who believed that whatever side of the ovary produced the egg determined the sex of the baby ie she could only produce girls as her right ovary had been removed. Obviously girls come from the left ovary. Today i'd just think it was an April fool but she really did think this!

blimey - blinder you came onto the thread condescending and have carried on throughout.

I actulaly think it's a very reasonable qustion.

Given (as already mentioned), interfility, miscarriage, etc - how did they realise that sex equals baby after 9 months, given that many women don't even start showing until they're 4 months pregnant.

Someone somewhre must have sat down and worked out the gestation period, the fact that some women had sex but never had babies, and other women had lots of babies.

I've been interested in this kind of thing ever since watching In A Savage Land with Rufus Sewell. As others have said there are many theories of conception over time and culture. By chance, of course one of them was going to be right. Doesn't mean the whole world made the realisation at the same time. Trobriand Islanders, with a matriarchial society, didn't believe men had anything to do with concepton at all.

You are being very unfair to Blinder.

She is being informative, not patronising.

Good show, Blinder.

oh right - yes she came on to the thread and was really nice to start with wasn't she

"blinder Thu 31-Mar-11 21:08:40
I'm sorry but that has got to be the stupidest question I have ever seen bar none.

Penis goes in. Periods stop. Belly gets bigger. Baby comes out.

What about that process seems bafflingly obscure to you OP?"

One of those peope you never want to invite over for dinner, or drinks or anything as they stop any conversation dead with facts stated rather like DS2 explain stuff to DS1 in a "duh don't you know" way, instead of.........well.nicely and in the spirit of the conversation.

Ah. I confess I didn't read missed the earlier posts.

Bad show on that front, Blinder.

blinder it's certainly not a stupid question and you have a very shallow understanding of the human intellect if you think it is. The question touches on deep aspects of the evolution of human understanding and the complex interplay between instinct, learned behaviour and the development of abstract ideas from observation of nature, which would eventually lead to rationalism and the scientific method.

In my experience people who think questions are stupid usually haven't understood them.

I think we tend to assume people a long time ago weren't as bright as us, and that view is compounded by all those telly re-enactments with dirty, matted-haired humans looking puzzled and annoyed. But humans actually evolved to homo sapiens level quite a while ago and they developed language. I often think, they probably did have a sense of humour and were able to talk things over and discuss various ideas, rather than just frowning and growling. And just as now there will always have ben those who were more perceptive or inventive than the rest, who made breakthroughs in understanding.

Agree animals probably played a huge role too in our understanding of reproduction.

This has all been MOST interesting.

I too wonder about strange food stuffs where you really do need to develop a taste for it to seem palatable, like chilli etc. I wonder if that started in a medicinal kind of way..

Interesting thread.

So, do you think that possibly some "infertile" couples from years ago just hadn't worked out what they were supposed to do?

My mil told me (after about a bottle and half of wine) that she got the shock of her life on her wedding night. She had no idea that it was supposed to go inside .

Incidently, my question was geared towards to the beginning of time as it were, being interested in the thought processes that would have occurred for the connection to be made.

I wasn't in any way suggesting that intelligence had anything to do with it or that the realisation only occurred 200 years ago but there must have been a point, however brief, where no connection had been made between sex and babies.

I bloody love mumsnet

Me too Apocalypse - and what kind of cheese would that be?

A big smelly hunk of brie

I had a group of friends who were Tunisian. All educated and had access to the internet. They all believed sperm was produced in their knees. They wouldn't kneel down for too long in case they damaged their sperm. They said every man they knew believed that too. God knows why!

I do love thinking about who first discovered things like bread and coffee and cheese and how they came about.

EnigmaticMonkey, sadly I've heard that one a few times. Someone called into a radio show saying it had happened to them. Took doctors awhile to realise why they were struggling when they were both fertile... It can't be pleasant for either party.