Human Males Evolve At a Faster Pace Than Females 454
Tisha_AH writes "A report by the Whitehead Institute indicates that the human Y chromosome present in males is evolving at a furious pace. Across the chromosome there can be as much as a 33% difference within humans alone. The portions of the chromosome evolving fastest are related to sperm production."
The cynical... (Score:2, Funny)
The cynical among us might say that we're finally catching up...
Males are not a population (Score:3, Insightful)
Males are not an independent population. And individuals don't evolve, so the notion of evolving males is silly.
Evolution is something that happens in a population, not in an individual. The female part of out population likely benefits just as much from the continuous changes to the Y chromosome as the male part of the population. Evolutionary speaking, that is. It's unlikely any individual would really care.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Informative)
Right, but the gene distribution present within the population is indicative of the changes in genotype within the population.
The notion of evolving males is not silly. That's why peacocks have big bright displays, while peahens are boring brown. (This is even within the wild population of peacocks.)
This is called "sex selection," and Darwin wrote extensively about it.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion of evolving males is not silly. That's why peacocks have big bright displays, while peahens are boring brown. (This is even within the wild population of peacocks.)
This is called "sex selection," and Darwin wrote extensively about it.
But that doesn't happen independently from the females. In fact, it happens exactly because of the hens. Sexual behaviour is a complex interaction, and the bright displays are only a manifestation of that. It happens because of tastes, roles and behaviours within the entire population, and it's likely that many genes involved in this are carried just as much by the female peacocks, but they only express themselves in the males.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Interesting)
Male-only sexual selection has been seen before. I can't remember the species, but its sperm has become cooperative, not swimming solo like your regular sperm, but hooking up in huge clusters, so they can swim faster than the sperm of the competition. Although that case was related to promiscuity, you could theoretically even get effects like this in monogamous species, although at a far lower pace. Suppose a mutation in one sperm stem-cell makes its y-chromosomes contain some useful trait. Then its offspring might stand a better chance beating other sperm from the same individual even.
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Humans are not monogamous. Humans did not evolve as a monogamous species. Pairing may be beneficial to raising children, but humans have a long history of sleeping around.
Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist on reproductive organs:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/a-tyrannical-romance/ [nytimes.com]
In species where females usually mate with a single male during a breeding episode, penises tend to be small and uninteresting. In those where females mate with several males (whether by choice or by force), penises are typically larger, and come with fancy decorations such as grooves, nobbles, and spikes.
The nob on the human male penis was specifically designed to scoop out a rivals sperm and deposit seaman deep into the vagina at which point the penis becomes soft so as to not scoop out its own deposit.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not necessarily.
Many well-off people have one or no children.
Many poor people have several children who also have several children.
Being better at getting laid is not the same as being better at procreation.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Insightful)
It may also represent societal pressures on men.
Men have a shorter life expectancy, also indicative of stronger pressure on the males of the species.
For example, if men tend to do more dangerous jobs (soldering, firefighting, etc...) this means the selective process among males is different, possibly harsher.
In other words, this is proof that men have it tougher than women, so my wife should quit her belly-achin' and bring me a sammich!!!
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Funny)
"Historically only 40% of all males were able to produce offspring"
And you write this on Slashdot, you insensitive clod?!
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Funny)
Thankfully I survived the life-threatening aspects of soldering back in my days of playing with electronics.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Funny)
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It is well known that soldering leads to burned fingertips.
Those who do not learn to overcome this, eventually develop permanent callouses on their fingers.
The callouses on the fingertips lead to less sensitive fingers.
Less sensitive fingers mean that the male cannot feel the nuances of a woman's reaction when he is...errr...stimulating her with his fingers.
The woman being 'pleasured' decides she does not w
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The notion of evolving males is not silly. That's why peacocks have big bright displays, while peahens are boring brown.
That boring brown is camouflage. If a predator comes along, the bright, loud male can be chased away from the camouflaged female covering the eggs.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Funny)
Possible reasons...
1) Sperm better resists the flood of estrogen chemicals and produces more babies.
2) Random chemicals in the environment are mutating the Y gene faster (so change is not coming from a benefit just a lot of random change)
3) Sperm lasts longer to evade birth control as long as possible.
Male sperm production is down by about 1/20th of what it used to be the last I read so there is a lot of pressure here.
4) Mutated sperm trying to develop laser beams to cut through condoms and diaphrams.
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You may not already be aware but it is slightly addictive. The chemicals and hormones in it improve female happiness and mood.
These question is
1) is it pushed from the male ( those who have a chemical that makes the female happier have more kids)
2) or pulled from the female (those females who are naturally happy because of innocent chemicals have more kids)
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A population doesn't need to be independent, just distinct.
As TFS said, there is rapid evolution on the Y chromosome in the human race. With the exception of a few anomalies, this means males.
Yes the female population benefits from this, but these accelerated mutations and shifts in allele frequency are not within the female population, therefor they are not within the group that is evolving at a more rapid pace.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:4, Informative)
You're horribly out of date, circa 2003 when I was in undergrad, there were about half a dozen geenes, including those (as mentioned in TFS) related to sperm production.
Also, if you have a wall that you paint once a year, and a second wall that you also paint once a year, but additionally paint a small corner of the second wall weekly as well, which wall gets painted more often? The second: while most of the wall is not as often changed, that doesn't negate the fact that part of it is changed more frequently.
Same thing: most of the DNA in a male changes at the same rate as in a female, but part of it changes faster.
Also, mutations on non-coding DNA could turn it into coding DNA. Also note that the Y chromosome is partially haploid - this makes sense with that - males are the test subjects of the species (with allele crossover, although rare genes could hypothetically get tossed on and off the Y chromosome.)
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Informative)
God I hate this kind of shit
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This might explain why people who voted for Bush twice in a row.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Evolution is nothing more than mutations over time.
Further, you can have a few individuals of a group evolve at a different rate and in a different direction than the remainder of the group. Humans are good example of this.
Re:Males are not a population (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is nothing more than mutations over time.
Absolutely untrue. Evolution is mutation plus culling. Without the culling, you do not have evolution. If you put together a situation in which all mutations are likely to survive, then there is no evolution, there is just divergence (this doesn't happen in nature and is very hard to make happen in a lab). Evolution requires some conditions which will make some mutations more able to survive and reproduce than others. In each generation, some mutations will be favourable, some will not. Most will be a mixture of both.
The culling process (starvation from inability to catch prey, death from not being able to outrun predators, inability to attract a mate caused by not having bright enough feathers, and so on) ensures that the mutations that are beneficial are more likely to enter the next generation than the ones that are not. The result of this process over time is evolution. Mutation is just a part of it. You can even have evolution without mutation if you start with a sufficiently varied population. Over time, the population will evolve towards a less varied group with only the characteristics suited to that particular niche.
Further, you can have a few individuals of a group evolve at a different rate and in a different direction than the remainder of the group. Humans are good example of this.
Absolutely. White skin, for example, was a mutation with both advantages and disadvantages. It increased the risk of death from skin cancer, but also made it easier to absorb vitamin D. In regions with lots of sunlight, evolution selects against this mutation because it kills more than it saves (you aren't likely to be short of vitamin D in the middle of Africa, but you are likely to develop skin cancer). In colder climates, vitamin D shortage is a real problem, even in a modern society; there have been a number of well-publicised cases in the north of England recently where black children suffer from a deficiency caused by not receiving enough exposure to sunlight, while skin cancer from exposure to sunlight is much rarer.
Note, however, that both the mutation and the culling are required. An individual that develops white skin has not evolved, it has mutated. A population that develops white skin because it has a greater survival utility in northern Europe has evolved. The same mutation in Africa will be as likely, but is much less likely to be passed on because it does not confer a survival advantage (the reverse, in fact) and so will not contribute to evolution.
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Not really. Women don't evolve that much because they have got no selective pressure - there is more demand than there is supply for females.
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Really?
Because in most of the western world there are more women than men. Of course demand could be for multiple females...
Re:The cynical... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. There are far more lonely men than women and women are lonely often because of their own decision and not because they cannot find anyone. There are also very successful males who have got some kind of a harem. Hugh Hefner is a prime example.
The old joke demonstrates this pretty well:
Boy: I have a dick, and you dun have!
Girl: My mother said, when I grow up, I can have as many as I want
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Plastic surgery has drastically reduced selective pressures on women. In fact, I remember hearing one geneticist say once such methods become globally accepted, the rate of human evolution is likely to drastically slow, if not come to a stop.
Re:The cynical... (Score:5, Insightful)
>The cynical among us might say that we're finally catching up...
Why is shit like this tolerated? If this was said about women then it would be sexist and marked as a troll. But when its about men, its "Interesting." Sadly, making fun of boys and men is standard fare in American society. Every sitcom and commercial has the smart wife and the idiot husband dynamic where the husband cant do something simple but the wife can.
As an adult this doesnt bother me, I just feel sorry for kids growing up today believing this garbage and we wonder why so many of our boys end up as dropouts and criminals. Perhaps society shouldnt be painting them as morons 24/7 and let them develop some self-esteem.
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Informative)
It could simply be taken as a form of compliment - specifically, by way of self-deprecation. It's not uncommon, nor considered problematic in many cultures. (As one who has not yet subscribed to any particular culture, I have no opinion as to whether it offends me or not.)
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Compliment by self-deprecation is fine. Compliment by half-the-human-race-deprecation is not.
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry you got modded down.. I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Like you, I could care less now.. but you are correct - ever since the old school women's liberation movement (which was a good and necessary thing) the balance his shifted so that women aren't equals, they are male superiors. Most advertising portrays females as the wise and NECESSARY figureheads of families while men are bumbling with 0 (or equally idiotic) focus. I'm very fortunate in my marriage.. but the occasional times we bump heads, why is the supposition that I'm automatically the one who's wrong?
The cynical and sexist side of me thinks that this is because women generally still feel inadequate in some capacity.
But yea.. factor in TV advertising, divorced moms who typically end up with custody ranting about how evil fathers/men are and doctors prescribing away 'boys will be boys' (generally at the request of the mom), future generations will have some serious genetics to do battle with.
No wonder males are evolving faster than women. Survival of the fittest.. and men are no longer fit in the battle of the sexes.
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
TV panders to women because TV is all about selling advertising. Advertising is all about selling crap. Who does the day to day shopping? Unless you're a single guy it's probably a woman. For most goods, advertisers value the eyeballs of women far more than those of men. This is why nearly every TV program that isn't a guy's show (sports/fishing/woodworking/etc) must be palatable to women. If women won't like it it's not on TV.
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, let me tell you how great it is to be constantly reminded that my place is in the home. It makes me feel so SUPERIOR. It's a miracle that I can manage to hold down a software development job too, in which my undeniable superiority rakes in 70% as much as the man in the other cube. Thank God for that old school women's lib thing that is obviously no longer necessary.
Re:The cynical... (Score:5, Insightful)
By and large, the idea than women earn less for equal work is incorrect these days. Yes, women earn less, but that's because they choose safer jobs on average (over 90% of workplace deaths are men), they are more likely to take extended periods of time away from their careers for child-rearing (in most places in the world, paternity leave is a pittance compared with maternity leave), they aren't as demanding when they ask for raises, they choose more pleasant indoor jobs at a higher rate than men do, they work fewer hours on average (men work more overtime on average and are more likely to be employed full-time), and other things of this nature. Once you control for factors like this - factors that boil down to women being less committed to their careers on average than men (who are viewed as the bread-winner and judged harshly if they can't provide for their families) you'll find that the sexes are about equal. Sure, you might put in equal work to your male peers, but other women who make different choices bring down the average salary for women. It's not discrimination, it's choice that causes women to earn less on average.
Look at it this way: if you really could get the same amount of work from a woman at only 70% the cost, who would ever hire men?
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[citation needed]. Here's one from me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_pay_for_women [wikipedia.org]
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Why is shit like this tolerated?
Because humor is usually either mocking yourself or those who are in power. Everything else is generally considered in poor taste---unless you select the one ethnicity that each country is allowed to hate. In the USA it used to be the "Pollacks", nowadays the French seem to be it.
People in power always gets their fair share or barbs and Obama as the current president is no exception.
However you are on to something: as society becomes more integrated and less racist, mock-the
Re:The cynical... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called self-deprecating humor [wikipedia.org]. I'm a male, so I get to make fun of men. I'm also a white guy, so I can make fun of white guys. I've witnessed African-Americans making fun of the African-American stereotype, and guess what. It's funny. I've also witnessed women making fun of female stereotypes, and guess what. It's funny, too.
You should try it sometime yourself. Stop taking yourself, your race, your gender, your religion, your [whatever] so seriously. Ironically, most people respect folks more who are able to laugh at themselves. It's people like you are are "that guy" that no one wants to be around because they're so self-righteous.
I don't feel sorry for our children at all. I want my kids to have a healthy sense of humility and not be like you. And if you think that comments like these about one's own cultural groups are a contributing factor to society's ills, you really need to get a better perspective things.
In other words, man up, Nancy.
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And then there's all his black racist jokes. He's constantly making fun of black hip hop and R&B stars, black culture in general, and even had a lengthy bit about "niggers" which was used not in that brotherly way, but in a distinctly derogatory way. Like "Niggas love to not know! [cheerfully]'Man I don't know that shit!'" and "Niggas always blame the media. 'Oh it's the media. It's just the media.' When I'm gettin money from the ATM, I'm not looking over my shoulder for the media!"
I think you're ju
So from what I can gather... (Score:2, Insightful)
Er... (Score:4, Funny)
You're correct, males do tend to generate more sperm than females...
-Matt
Re:Er... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yes, I made the assumption it would be equal, but it is not.
Last week there was a small reunion of a class 10 years ago, and the "skinny unattractive girl" grown into a hottie, the "hottie" has gone through her batch of men and now has the hottie-attitude, still, yet has settle for far less you would've thought...
In this context, those two got into a whole sex-conversation, with giggles, what they had tried and such, and we ended up with the all "teen hormone driv
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Err, women can masturbate all the time, 24/7, and it wouldn't make much difference... eggs will still release on their own set schedule (see also the menstrual cycle).
Guys OTOH, through either masturbation or sex, have to generate more. Frequent orgasms will over time put the testes into overdrive, generating a higher production rate if I remember right.
Re:So from what I can gather... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just that, but look at the engineering here...
Testicles sit outside of the body (because sperm can't handle internal body temperatures for too long), so they get exposed to all kinds of fun stuff: radical temperature extremes, physical abuse, etc. Males generate new sperm all the time from scratch, and in huge frickin' numbers. Sperm cells are built to compete and operate at high energy, requiring high sugars just to survive (after all, they're literally shot into the vagina - or in most /.'ers cases, into something else).
Women OTOH have all of their eggs tucked inside, deep in the abdomen, where they stay in a nice, consistent environment. IIRC, they also have all of their eggs present in their body when they are born. Women only drop like one egg a month (excepting twins, fertility drugs, etc), so there's no competition or rush for the egg cell as it drifts slowly down the uterus - either into oblivion or fertilization.
Re:So from what I can gather... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent down. The point he made is entirely wrong.
According to the grandparent's hypothesis, genes would mutate more frequently in men than in women. Genes that are shred between the genders would mutate more in men than women, but in each child a mixture of the more-mutated and less-mutated genes would be provided by the two parents and so they would average out. The genes only present in the male (i.e. on the Y chromosome) would not have this averaging effect and so would contain a higher total level of mutation. X chromosomes inherited from the male parent in women would be more likely to be mutated than the ones inherited from the mother. Y chromosomes do not appear in females, so they would only come from the father and would be subject to a greater amount of potential mutation. Multiply this by a few thousand generations, and you'd see a greater level of mutation in the Y chromosome than in the rest of the genome which is exactly what TFA says is seen
The grandparent produced a hypothesis that supported the observation. The next step according to the scientific method is to design a test that would contradict the grandparent's hypothesis but not the observed evidence. Not simply to say 'mod parent down'.
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Come on, mods, he was clearly joking and clearly the statement is incorrect. Masturbation in no way can make sperm genetically superior. In fact, masturbation would decrease the liklihood of passing genes along -- if you're masturbating, clearly you're not getting any sex.
Re:So from what I can gather... (Score:4, Insightful)
"One can only hunt deer for so long before an accident befalls one's genitals."
I think I saw that video on YouTube!
At last... (Score:5, Funny)
Al least some scientific data ;-)
Very seriously, I had a feminist girlfriend that wouldn't believe a child sex was defined by the spermatozoid. According to her the female genitals were as much responsible for the sex of the child.
I guess this article explains everything, she needs more evolution in order to understand those advanced concepts ;-))
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How the cause of gender selection have any effect on evolution (actually, mutation speed)?
Males mutate faster, because the Y chromosome has only a single copy.
About the gender selection.
The female genitals could have as much responsibility (like the pH value).
If the environment is hostile to one type of sperm, chances are better for the other type.
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About the gender selection. The female genitals could have as much responsibility (like the pH value). If the environment is hostile to one type of sperm, chances are better for the other type.
The inclusion of a X or Y chromosome in a spermatozoa has no effect on its survivability in the female.
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She might not be too far wrong though.
A slightly acidic environment is likely to kill more Y sperm, which aren't as tolerant as X sperm.
I can't cite any studies to support this, but have a friend whose OB/GYN told her that as a result of her body chemistry she was unlikely to conceive any boys. (She did manage to beat the odds though and had a boy, and three girls.)
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If we start out as females, and have to evolve to be males (hence why males have nipples), does that explain why males evolve faster then females? Maybe because we have to do so to become males?
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Actually, all embryos do start as female. Maybe not genetically, but they develop as a female fetus, and then later in pregnancy the ovaries drop to become testicles and the penis develops. Hormonal and chemical differences in the mother's uterus can prevent this from happening properly (leading to people with a female body who are genetically male), or can lead to
Does this change other predictions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Does this change other predictions? (Score:5, Informative)
Contrary to a widely held scientific theory that the mammalian Y chromosome is slowly decaying or stagnating, new evidence suggests that in fact the Y is actually evolving quite rapidly through continuous, wholesale renovation.
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Mod the article flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
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You know, normally I'd lean toward the side of the MIT scientists, but here I'm with you. Sure, there are significant changes, but are allele frequencies changing? That's not there, and to conflate the two - differences and Evolution - is irresponsible.
Re:Mod the article flamebait (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mod the article flamebait (Score:4, Informative)
The headline plays with the common association between "evolution" and "improvement" in order to gather angry responses and its fair share of taunting.
No it doesn't. "To evolve" is a neutral term, quite apart from "better" and "worse". If people want to get riled up over that, it's their own damn fault.
That's because women keep changing their mind (Score:5, Funny)
...at what they are looking for in a mate.
Re:That's because women keep changing their mind (Score:5, Funny)
Wow... (Score:2)
Thousands of years of wars fought because of skin tone or beliefs when really we could have done it over +/- 1/2 tsp.
Is this leading to porn actors trying to subjugate the rest of us as the inferior race?
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Thousands of years of wars fought because of skin tone or beliefs when really we could have done it over +/- 1/2 tsp.
Err, Trojan War? That one has to count
(no, not the pun damnit, the historical one... :) )
A quick look at male behavior provides some clues (Score:3, Interesting)
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"Darwin Award" winners are pretty overwhelmingly male.
Evolution is driven by mutation. The vast majority of mutations are not beneficial. The fact that these Darwin Award winners are male only adds evidence that males are evolving at a faster pace than females.
Fortunately, in order to truly be a Darwin Award winner, you must remove yourself from the gene pool. The Darwin Awards show that evolution works!
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Yet it is a popular concept that A. proves something about males and B. something about society, and not the reverse.
Our ADN is getting ready... (Score:2)
... for 3D pron [slashdot.org]
I thought the Y chromosome contained nothing (Score:2)
Re:I thought the Y chromosome contained nothing (Score:5, Informative)
If the Y contained nothing, then males would inherit exactly zero traits from their fathers.
That bit is wrong... fathers provide 23 chromosomes in total, just like mothers. Daughters inherit plenty of traits from their fathers, after all, and they don't have a Y chromosome.
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Hell, they get the second X from Dad, so it's his fault she's a girl anyway!
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Baldness NOT from mother's side (Score:3, Informative)
http://ca.askmen.com/sports/health_60/92_mens_health.html [askmen.com]
bad headline? (Score:2)
Uhh maybe a less sensationalist headline? [www.cbc.ca]
Not surprising (Score:2)
TFA (Score:2)
The article doesn't entrely match the summary, especially the title. It says little about the evolution of the X chromosome, only that the Y is evolving faster than they thought it did. TFA makes no comparison between the X and Y chromosomes. There can be in inferrence, as it mentions that the Y has no chance to swap genes as the other chromosomes do.
It also infers that it's the chimp's Y that is evolving more, and the "better" is sperm production, and it's the difference between how chimps and humans mate.
This may be Degeneration, not Evolution (Score:2)
"Evolving" might not be the right term. "Changing" might be better. Simplistically explained, so don't hang me for this: Evolving is genetic changes that is the result of environmental pressure. Evolving therefor results in better adaptation and superior individuals. Any disadvantageous mutation quickly perish. Very few changes are beneficial.
If there is no or little environmental pressure, any non-lethal mutation survives, and mutations flourish, good and bad.
If the rate of mutation increases rapidly, it i
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"Evolving" might not be the right term. "Changing" might be better.
Except those are really the same thing.
Evolution is simply changes in allele distribution in a population over time. That's all it means. It doesn't have to involve mutation, and it doesn't even have to be towards better adaptation. Natural Selection is the mechanism by which these changes can be selected for or against according to their survival benefit and is why evolution generally tends toward better adaptation, but it needn't be so
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Here is an example to illustrate. The facts can be discussed, but understand the point.
Human brainsize was limited to surviving natural birth. With c-section, this is not an issue, and any brainsize is OK. Since a big brain is a very good survival tool, in not too many generations all infants will have brains too big for natural birth, and can only survive with a c-section. This is certainly evolution, but since we understand and have created this environment artificially, we should also understand what it
Old News... (Score:5, Informative)
Did I say old news? 1947 old:
“The primordial oocytes are mostly if not all formed at birth, whereas spermatogonia go on dividing throughout the sexual life of a male. So if mutation is due to faulty copying of genes at a nuclear division, we might expect it to be commoner in males than females.”
“ we should expect higher mutability in the male to be a general property of human and perhaps other vertebrate genes.”
J. B. S. Haldane. 1947. The mutation rate of the gene for haemophilia and its segregation ratios in males and females. Ann. Eugen. 13:262-271.
interesting factoid: (Score:5, Interesting)
testicle size in simians is correlated with female permissiveness. such that, in chimpanzees, where a female in estrus is pretty much a gangbang, chimpanzees males have evolved humongous testicles. they need to, because in such a situation, the only strategy available to the male to ensure his genetic continuance is to simply overwhelm other male's sperm with sheer ejaculate volume
meanwhile, in highly monogamous simians who mate for life, such as gibbons, the testicles are tiny. there's simply no need for so much ejaculate volume, its a waste of resources. she's not going anywhere
interestingly enough, human males have intermediate sized testicles, owing to the fact that human females are semi-monogamous/ semi-polygamous
however, i've always wondered why testicles appeared on the outside of the male mammalian body. it seems a ridiculous vulnerability and i've never heard a good explanation as to why. for example, dolphins aren't swimming around with their balls out: the need to be streamlined. of course sperm need a lower temperature to develop, but thats an effect, not a cause. i'm saying wouldn't it be better to have your testicles inside your body and evolve sperm that develop at a higher temperature? its pretty ridiculous to have such an important organ dangling outside unprotected. i never understood why
Re:obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution doesn't give us the best possible solution, just one which was "good enough" at some point in time. As a result we have spines which hurt, wrists which break easily when we try to protect us from a fall, women who become infertile long before they would lose the strength to carry a child, etc.
hmm (Score:2)
I for one welcome our...
No, it's nasty. I can't do it.
The actual paper... (Score:2)
Here's a link to the actual paper [nature.com] (rather than the press release), for those who have a subscription to Nature or are willing to pay $32 to read it.
just like fruit flys (Score:3, Interesting)
Many years ago, I read a serious genetics paper about this. The scientist managed to setup up a colony of fruit flys (drosophilia melanogaster) so that the females remained static - they did not evolve - and the males did.
In fruit flys, multiple males mate with a female, so there is a lot of competition between the different sperm.
What happened is that the males evolved their ejaculate to become more aggressive, to outcompete the other males; in some cases, the ejaculate became toxic to the females.
"Curiouser and curiouser!" Cried Alice (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes... and no. The "differences" you mention are not hard, sharp divisions. They are bell curves with peaks in different places, but there is lots of overlap. Even in the realm of sheer upper-body strength, I guarantee that (unless you happen to be a champion powerlifter) there are are women who can outbench you.
It's not that differences don't exist. (They do, and vive la difference.) It's just they they are of a different kind, and a different size, and a different range, than
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And I said that doesn't mean what you think it means. You said that meant "That physically, men were superior to women." Sockatume pointed out one problem with that too: "Equating mechanical strength to physical superiority is specious." Especially in a species with as many different strategic options as humans do, a difference in any one dimension isn't particularly relevant. My point was that, even for tasks that require a specific faculty like upper-body strength, you'll still find women who can do the job just fine. The "average differences", while interesting, are useless in practice. You still need to focus on the only relevant criteria: can they do the job?
And your last paragraph shows your lack of understanding of what I am talking about. I never said women can't do a certain job. I said the strongest man is stronger then the strongest woman. I said the average man is stronger then the average woman. Where in those statements does it say that women can't hunt, fight, run, etc? It doesn't. That is the same reason why Sockatume is wrong when replying to my statement, also he needs to back up his/her information about efficiency.
To go on to the efficiency:
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Equating mechanical strength to physical superiority is specious. Overall survival value is the name of the game, and the physical strength of the strongest - or even average - individual doesn't speak to a survival advantage in modern or ancient society. The higher percentage body fat in female humans is a significant survival advantage in cold weather conditions, while the lower body mass and associated lower energy overhead can be the difference between starving exhaustion and mental and physical readine
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Well, yeah, it says men are evolving faster... specifically, the Y-chromosome, and more specifically, it's related to sperm production.
Will they develop enhanced regeneration and adamantium claws?
In short, your junk is evolving. Not necessarily anything else. That MIGHT not be considered a complementary thing, depending on how you feel about your particular junk.
I feel pretty good about my "junk" but don't refer to them as junk. I am pretty sure they are holy...why my fiancee says oh god all the time...
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That "6000" number may (you didn't provide data) only be touted by 0.1% of religious groups, but they are the loudest out there... the radial, vocal far right.
That number, and the whole Young Earth fairy tale, is a very recent invention. In the 1700s, there was no major Christan group (or any other Western Religion) espousing such nonsense. Various groups had once believed in a "young earth", but it has been soundly rejected by all of them, centuries ago. This is why most Europeans, even the devoutly religi
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Yeah, well it's really easy to feel superior when your reproductive organs aren't dangling around at convenient kicking height.