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that's close - but not quite what I was taught. Basically, men aren't as important as women. If 99.99% of men died today, the human race could be back to it's
by smanek 18y ago
that's close - but not quite what I was taught.
Basically, men aren't as important as women. If 99.99% of men died today, the human race could be back to it's normal population within a generation (a man could easily father a child a day for 30 years ~10,000 children). On the other hand, we'd have much more trouble if 99.9% of women died, since a women can only realistically have about 10 children in a lifetime. This encourages men to be bigger risk takers - women were the limiting reagent to population growth.
Similarly, the potential gain for a ridiculously successful man (genetically speaking) is that he can have several thousand children. A women, on the other hand, can likely have 10 children whether or not she is successful; so there is little (evolutionary) benefit for her to be hugely successful (or take risks necessary to do so).
- DaniFong 18y agoA women, on the other hand, can likely have 10 children whether or not she is successful Surely you are joking... Miscarriages, even a century ago, claimed so many women. You would be lucky to live past your third, much less your tenth! Without some network to provided for her (either by her family, or the village, or her mate, all of which are strongly effected by status), the likelihood of surviving a pregnancy becomes much lower. Women couldn't just flip a switch and get pregnant to satisfy a biological urge. Pregnancy represents both an enormous investment in time, effort, and energy, and a gamble on life. Status structure reflects this.
- smanek 18y agofair enough. Let me rephrase to say that a moderately successful women (on the par of a low level aristocrat) could easily support 10 children. It still supports my contention that men had more to gain from being hugely successful (king level) than a women.
- smanek 18y agoOh, and the 10 was an upper bound. If it's 3 that's even better - women are even more of a limiting reagent and they have less of a evolutionary need for massive amounts of wealth.
- DaniFong 18y agoMy theory is that there are two types of fundamental 'evolutionary units' that are important when discussing humans. Memes, and genes. I agree that, when memes were unimportant, the genetic influence, for females, of an outstanding capability to provide, would be largely wasted. However, massive wealth only became possible once human culture grew, and then, for reasons I outlined below, memes became far more sticky, more influential, and more important, by comparison. In this, women have a greater evolutionary incentive to gain wealth or prestige or spread memes, but not a greater genetic incentive.
- xiaoma 18y agoFamilies with nine or ten children weren't all that uncommon in my grandparents' generation here in Taiwan. Even today, there are ten different countries in which the fertility rate is currently above 6 and a couple above 7. I don't think 10 children would be unreasonable as an upper bound for the exceptionally successful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territori...
- mcescher 18y ago> Miscarriages, even a century ago, claimed so many women s/Miscarriages/Childbirth That's why wide hips are important.
- mattmaroon 18y agoI remember once reading that before modern medicine, 1/4 of pregnancies ended in death to the mother due to the baby's size. That would certainly explain why women don't take mating lightly.
- rkts 18y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death "The historical level of maternal deaths is probably around 1 in 100 births." However: "Mortality rates reached horrible proportions in maternity institutions in the 1800s, sometimes climbing to 40 percent of birthgiving women."
- mattmaroon 18y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy "Also, the life expectancy for women was lower throughout history than it was for men; because, until the advent of modern medicine, one in four women died in childbirth." I had heard this statistic originally in some atheist propaganda video, hilariously enough.