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Human Males Evolve At a Faster Pace Than Females
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 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.
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.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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.
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!!!
Yes, that is true. Historically only 40% of all males were able to produce offspring while over 80% of all females were. Since 60% of all males were evolutionary losers but only 20% of females ofcourse that produces different survival strategies for the genders.
Football Odds
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.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
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.
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?