Science Quote by Marvin Harris

Normal isn’t neutral here; it’s a polemical weapon. Marvin Harris is doing what he did best as a scientist and cultural materialist: pushing a controversial human behavior out of the moral panic zone and into the banal category of mammalian life. The opening move, "However, further research", is a quiet flex. It signals that earlier claims, likely drenched in taboo or ideology, have been overruled by evidence. Harris isn’t merely reporting data; he’s reassigning authority from tradition and disgust to comparative biology.

The phrase "normal condition" is doing heavy lifting. It implies prevalence, predictability, even adaptiveness, without having to litigate ethics. By adding "for most other mammals", Harris widens the frame until human exceptionalism starts to look like a rhetorical hobby rather than a scientific stance. If the pattern holds across mammals, then treating it as a uniquely human pathology becomes an error of perspective, not fact.

"It seems pretty clear why" is the second pivot. The casual tone disguises a sharp methodological claim: explanation should be mechanical, not mystical. For mammals, "why" often cashes out in terms of reproduction, parental investment, competition, or survival pressures; for humans, Harris is hinting that culture modifies the expression, but doesn’t erase the underlying logic.

Subtext: the real target is the impulse to treat "natural" as "good" or "bad". Harris is saying: start with what is typical, then ask what conditions make it so - and save the sermons for someone else.