Sex began on a Saturday Night

My good friend Dr. Rob Buckman and I have shared some interesting times over the years. As many of you will know, Rob unfortunately passed away a few months ago and I never had the chance to say how much I enjoyed his passion for secularism, humanism, and his wonderful manner of public speaking and educating. Rob and I had spoken at several conferences together over the past 15 years or so. At a Humanist Association of Canada conference (I believe in 2004), we had discovered that the data projector was not working properly. Most of my presentations use Power Point. Without a projector, Rob suggested that I have my slides placed on transparencies and that he would place them on an overhead projector one at a time. It turned out to be one of those spontaneously humorous episodes with Rob's occasional comments adding considerable colour to my talk which was about evolution and sex.

On one slide, I was talking about how some chimpanzee groups are structured with an alpha male and a harem of females. This creates a bit of a power struggle between younger males further down on the chain of status. It also creates some very creative ways in which young males seek out and attempt to mate with some of the harem females. As I mention in my book How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass, there will be an occasional secret sexual encounter between a harem female and a lesser male. This is referred to by primatologists in the field as the 'sneaky fucker' scenario. As this term was about to be presented in my talk, Rob suddenly burst out: "I've always wanted to see the term: 'Sneaky fucker' mentioned at a conference. Thank you for the opportunity, Dr. DiCarlo".

At the conference banquet, Rob came over to our table to discuss another point I had mentioned in my talk. In his usual charming and Socratic manner, Rob asked me if it was true that fossil evidence indicates that sexual reproduction started approximately one billion years ago. I responded that the evidence indicates that it could be more or less give a few million years but that was generally the accepted time period at which sexual reproduction began. Rob then said: "I bet it started on a Saturday night".

Good night, dear friend. Thank you for living such a wonderful life.