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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...
Males masturbate more than females, amirite?
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 ;-))
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I wonder if this would counter the other studies saying that the y chromosome is doomed.
Mod the whole article flamebait. The headline plays with the common association between "evolution" and "improvement" in order to gather angry responses and its fair share of taunting.
...at what they are looking for in a mate.
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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.
Is this leading to porn actors trying to subjugate the rest of us as the inferior race?
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You're correct, males do tend to generate more sperm than females...
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
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.
"Darwin Award" winners are pretty overwhelmingly male.
... for 3D pron
What is it already, about us and our testicles? Anyway, no wonder women look at us like we're mutants or something.
At least that's how they explained it to us in BIO 101. (Yes I realize it was probably a massive simplification.) The idea was that the Y chromosome has almost nothing on it and is little more than a female to male switch. (All the info for creating a male body are else where in the genome.) If that's sort of correct that means it doesn't really matter if the Y chromosome changes since all it has to get across is the signal "You male, UGG" Anyway if us guys evolve so quickly where are all my super-powers? (You know, besides my super power to turn green lights red when I drive up to them.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Uhh maybe a less sensationalist headline?
To mate, must make happy one of the opposite sex. Now, the requirements for men are far more complex than for women.
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. One female chimp will have many sperm donors, while most human females don't.
So rather than saying that men's sex chromosome is evolving faster than the female's X, it could be said that chimp's Ys are the ones doing most of the diverging.
Free Martian Whores!
"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 is either due to intense environmental pressure, such as arriving on the Galapagos Island, or it is due to the fact that there is no environmental pressure on this genetic treat, and you survive either way. Literally Degeneration.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
"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!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
This has been known for a long time. It is called "male driven evolution". This happens because in humans (and most animals) the cells producing sperms divide about 6 times more than the egg cells. And guess what: studies in a human gene that has a homologue in both X and Y chromosomes, showed that (you guessed it) the Y homologue changes about 6 times faster than the X one.
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.
I don't mind dating a girl that has been with everybody, as long as she had a good shower afterwards.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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 you seem to understand.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
I for one welcome our...
No, it's nasty. I can't do it.
As are Nobel prize winners.
Yet it is a popular concept that A. proves something about males and B. something about society, and not the reverse.
Here's a link to the actual paper (rather than the press release), for those who have a subscription to Nature or are willing to pay $32 to read it.
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
Apparently size does matter.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
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 readiness. It's a complex issue and it was rather naive of you to announce a "winner" in a complex, argument-launching question on the basis of a single attribute.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
OK, so people differ 5% from chimps but men differ 33% from male chimps?
I get the feeling there may be a joke in there somewhere.
But isn't this kind of obvious?. Changes that effect reproduction should happen the fastest. I mean isnt that what evolution is all about, getting better more efficient ways to procreate?
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Evolution does not require speciation, it requires adaptation to accommodate changing niches which may, but not necessarily will lead to speciation.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No, the whole idea of evolution is that you have differentiation through physical necessitation. Often isolation can/will lead to necessity, but it's a symptom of rather than a cause of.
Men are the testing area :P Y chromosome is the development brach, X is the stable?
You know the womens groups will come out that this is sexist? I swear it's like the religious groups who come out with their nonsense when science disproves one of their "theories" - you know like the earth is not flat, does not reside in the center of the universe, and is not approximately 6000 years old.
Perhaps if you didn't flamebait them at every opportunity that arose? I swear every damn article that talks about evolution has DOZENS of agnostic drones bitching about 'religious groups'. Wtf really... Is it really that bad someone doesn't believe what you do? They are not part of the borg so you call them out at every opportunity? Perhaps you act as bad as you accuse others of doing? Is this how you want to present yourself to others? Sounds like you (and your parents) also missed the point of being called to the principals office. You like to piss people off (btw that is not a good thing). Not what the article was about... So far my sample of 2 examples from your rant shows this about you.
But my little rant will not change your mind. You will just blunder on thru life wondering why everyone around you is an 'idiot'. Perhaps you need to reflect on what *YOUR* actions do to others.
Sorry to rant on you but the 6000 number is getting old. I would be willing to bet cold hard cash 99.9% of 'religious groups' do not even believe that number. You are generalizing what a fairly small group calculated out of the bible and what meme you heard on the internet about 'religious groups'.
Perhaps if you attended some 'religious groups' meetings you might get something from it instead of hatred (which is all I have seen from you so far). Here is what I have gotten out of it. You get out of life what you put into it. In life you make good choices and bad choices all the time. Ignore hatred it is self destructive and not helpful in life.
Are their loony jobs out there? Yes, they tend to exist in all groups. Just ask someone who collects every star wars memorabilia that exists. While the rest of us played with the toys a bit and then let it go. To give you an example my gf. Her first encounter with star trek was a dude who built his own klingon costumes. What sort of impression does that give to her? She will not watch star trek. She will not even give it a chance. Oh and I call her out on this too so you are not alone. Perhaps you do the same with other things in your life?
"The portions of the chromosome evolving fastest are related to sperm production..."
God help us if the little bastards learn how to fly.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
The Darwin Award only applies is the organism is childless. And most dangerous behavior exhibited by males is primarily tied to mating. Far more men get into bar faights over women than all other reasons put together, and many of those reasons are tied to copulation in some way (money, etc).
Free Martian Whores!
are you telling me evolution can't figure out how to produce sperm at body temperature?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
Well, yeah, it says men are evolving faster... specifically, the Y-chromosome, and more specifically, it's related to sperm production.
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.
-Dave Haynie
1st off i'm not going to cite stuff because i've not got it at hand and any citations would be from audio files. the recent courses i've listened to in biology and, more specifically, evolutionary biology suggest the y chromosome is a shrivelled up little thing fast loosing genes. as a guy i didn't much like hearing that either. there's some evidence in some flatworm species that 'penis fencing' suggests bearing young is an "aggressive act" foisted upon a weaker rival. how that would scale up to other species i couldn't say. there are recent findings that male sperm have complex mechanisms that try to induce the egg to draw down from the female as much developmental resources as possible while the egg has similar mechanisms that will try to limited the amount of resources a fertilised egg can demand of the mother. this seems to suggest that there's not only great complexity in development but that sperm and egg are in competition. it's very complex not yet nearly understood stuff. also a 'faster' rate of evolution isn't necessarily a sign of good things to come or an evolutionary edge. what i term differential evolution, for want of a better term, seems not to have been studied or made available to mere lay people such as myself. by differential evolution i mean what does it mean when a species evolves faster. does it simply mean the species has greater fitness? what are the consequences of 'faster' evolution and can such consequences be considered in anything but out of context, almost trivial generalities?
ideopath @ play
I'm waiting for my apology.
"The portions of the chromosome evolving fastest are related to sperm production"
Men are furiously coming up with better and better ways of getting laid. A trip to a local bar could have told you that.
...sperm superiority is so important to successfully passing on an organism's genes that the best sperm, the ones that "win" and partner in producing the zygote, carry along even detrimental traits, since the chromosome is taken as a whole. No wonder Nature works on improving sperm more than anything else. (Now cue the obligatory jokes about detrimental, or radical traits, all coming from the male.) (Actually, there is some truth in this, since the Y chromosome cannot swap out its defective or its suboptimal parts with its pair, since it hasn't one, which accounts for more idiots AND more geniuses among the male vs. the female population.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
but WHY? why do the testicles need to be outside the body? it seems to make no sense: you have a vital organ dangling outside the body. should we also carry our livers in skin pouches out the side of our abdomen? should our spleens be held in little sacks on our chest? does that make any sense to you?
OBVIOUSLY there is a good reason for it, evolution has produced us to be this way. but what is that reason?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm a male, as I suspect you are, and that was my first thought as well (so maybe we are), but then I realized that this can probably be explained by the fact that there are many more geeks in the world now, and we are all trying to figure out a way to get laid ;-)
That's right Geek Girls, you read it here first. Zero__Kelvin is officially a Sensitive New Age Guy!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
It's worth noting that you can make a complete human being without a Y chromosome. Its main function is to just signal the production of the sex hormones necessary to transform the (by default, female) fetus into a male. In fact, Y chromosomes have been shrinking for some time across species, indicative of the relative importance of their mere presence versus their negligible contents. It may well be that the higher mutation rate is a byproduct of cells saving energy by not doing much repair work on a chromosome whose contents are largely irrelevant.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
A Male is not a population. The set of all males is a population referred to ... wait for it ... as the population of males. It turns out the word "Males" is plural. Who'd a thunk it?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Are we talking about the maturity curve of a male in which it takes to mature from being a child to being a man, or are we talking about the gene process in which to obtain a mutation from one generation to another...thereby causing males to change their cell sturcture
(could be like getting a set of gills as in waterworld...that would be cool!)
TFA talks about "6 million years". I don't think that any population on Earth suffered from physical isolation from others populations for such long time.
It seems to me that the presumed Homo Sapiens evolution plateau isn't actually reached yet, but we're still evolving.
Clearly, you haven't met my ex-wife ...
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science."
Finally, we have proof Ron Burgundy was right!
Perhaps if you didn't flamebait them at every opportunity that arose?
I don't. Next
I swear every damn article that talks about evolution has DOZENS of agnostic drones bitching about 'religious groups'.
I am jewish, not agnostic. Next
Wtf really... Is it really that bad someone doesn't believe what you do?[/quote] I could care less if someone doesn't believe what I believe, however, when someone shrugs off proven science for dogma I do have a problem with that. especially when they punish people who do not support their religious belief. Next
They are not part of the borg so you call them out at every opportunity?[/quote] I never called religious groups the borg, but thanks for the idea. Next
Perhaps you act as bad as you accuse others of doing? Is this how you want to present yourself to others? Sounds like you (and your parents) also missed the point of being called to the principals office. You like to piss people off (btw that is not a good thing). Not what the article was about... So far my sample of 2 examples from your rant shows this about you.
Glad you are able to determine my intentions when you don't know me. I was doing a project I was assigned to do - just some people didn't like the answer. As for ranting...no really, I'd like you to meet kettle. Next
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
great, evolution through pr0n!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
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...
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Most changes to defeat birth control are going
to be mental, but other changes can work too.
In this case, semen that spills out of a condom.
(BTW, for the women and the pill: hormone arms race)
Somehow, the right female can devolve me right back into being a monkey.
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 religious, hear this stuff and do wonder about America.
This all started in the early 1800s, in the USA. William Miller, a New York farmer, came to believe that the Bible contained coded information, including the date of the "end of the world". This took form as the Seventh Day Adventist movement... followers of Miller organized and prepared for his calculated end of the world. He gained a national following in the mid 1800s, and finally named a final year, based on his calculations: 1843. I'm guessing he screwed up somewhere. Then it was somewhere between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When that year passed by, he got out his pencil, did the calculations again, and pronounced the real date as April 18, 1844. After that passed, he posted a new date: October 22, 1844. Curiously, the world also didn't end then. This final one became know as "The Great Disappointment".
Anyway, curiously enough, this crazy person's religion did not fail based on these failures, but continued to grow, backed by followers... Miller himself went into seclusion. In 1923, George McCready Price, a Millerite and Seventh-day Adventist, wrote a book called "The New Geology" (he was not, in fact, a geologist), which established the earth at somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, and claimed "The Genesis Flood" responsible for many modern geological features of the earth. This one book pretty much started the ball rolling among this fringe types.
As for this not being a mainstream belief... true. But not as true as you think. In 2008, Gallop conducted a poll, that indicated 44% of US adults agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so".
As for that number being thrown out... I understand this. I really don't care what various creatins believe, whether it's young earth, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster... as long as they keep it to themselves. But these folks have had a very, very dangerous effect on the policies of the USA, at least during the eight years of the Bush Administration. This does not sit will with those of us, such as myself, who value science over superstition, logic over "what I feel in mah gut", etc.
-Dave Haynie
So, males are evolving faster than females. "Hooray!!"
The part that's evolving is for sperm production. "...[crickets]..."
No, the whole idea of evolution is that you have differentiation through physical necessitation
Well, you don't need. It's just, the genes of things that crank out babies are more expressed, and culture matters, but not the way you think.
This is my sig.
It seems to me that the presumed Homo Sapiens evolution plateau isn't actually reached yet, but we're still evolving.
Well, people from Delaware are genetically superior, everyone knows that. All of you non-Delawareans are subhuman.
This is my sig.
It's more of a taboo to make fun of dead females. Same with domestic abuse and sexual violations. That's not owed to feminism btw - it was like that long before feminism has appeared, it just stuck around.
Evolution favors those that can reproduce faster and in greater numbers not those that are intelligent and/or strong. From what stupid crap I see on break.com (which should be renamed OwwMyBalls.com), I don't want males to dictate the course of evolution.
From now on it is going to be no I'm right because I am more evolved.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Male pattern baldness coming from the mother's side is a myth
http://ca.askmen.com/sports/health_60/92_mens_health.html
I remember, a few years back, showing that men have a greater affinity for science/math, and women more for culture/literature and this extends beyond the nurture part of nature vs nurture.
Actually plenty of studies have debunked that. All it took was a note on a math test that "this test has been gender-balanced" and women did as well a men on it.
So keeping the cell phone in a pants pocket wasn't such a great idea after all... ;)
Evolution is not always a beneficial change. There are plenty of evolutionary traits that resulted in dead ends for some species.
The related articles off of the MIT site point out that the Y chromosome has areas of replication that can make the entire chromosome or parts of it fold back upon themselves, creating non-viable offspring.
The idea of the article points out that there is much changing in the Y chromosome and it does not have the mechanisms in place to prevent some of the gross errors in duplication.
I was careful to not use the word improvement in the title. Maybe some folks cannot make the distinction between an evolutionary change and an improvement but I can.
In some ways cro-mag was superior in design to modern h-sap. A shorter body build, better musculature, larger brain case, improved sinus design, etc.. But they still died out or were out-competed by h-sap.
We do not know what the relationship is between genetics and autism. Maybe (my speculation here) autism results from the human brain being turned up way too much.
Tisha Hayes
As the Y Chromosome is a genetic dead zone filled with genes that don't do anything. The overwhelming majority of these changes are probably useless mutations that have no effect on the host organism and therefore didn't get bred out as harmful in the same way a mutation on the X chromosome would most likely kill the organism in which it expresses.
Think about it, we are 2 percent different genetically from chimpanzees, which accounts for the what we see as dramatic differences between our species, but this study found 20-plus percent genetic differences between our Y chromosome and our closest ancestor. Men are not 20-plus percent different from women as we are 2 percent different from chimpanzees.
The word "evolution" has nothing to do with this study. There is no natural selection involved, only random mutations amassing on a chromosome that is mostly empty space anyways.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
did you try sudo make me a pie --whitelist-ingredients?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Wonder if all this talk of estrogen in water supplies could be one of the reasons for the changes in the Y chromosome. I remember an article about males fishes actually turning females because of this very reason.
Did they take marriage into account?
After marriage men don't change but women do.
Of course most people here on /. wouldn't be familiar with that concept outside of 2L.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Hmm...then how do you explain Joe Biden?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Caution! I am in no way qualified to answer this...
Anyway, I've wondered that same thing about the external testes, and here's my theory:
The placement of the testicles is not to give the individual male a survival advantage, but rather to place an evolutionary force on the population as a whole. When a male is overly stressed and/or insecure his testes are withdrawn and close to the body. It is well known that this makes sperm production lower because of the body heat (this is why fertility doctors will recommend against tight underwear!).
God I hope this means we could be leaving behind those aspects of the american ideal of masculinity that I find most wearisome. I know i'm operating at the level of pop meta-science here, but god it would be nice.
it's use for population control isn't just for conspiracy theorists anymore! Using evolution to destroy the human race is evil! Jesse Ventura said so ... I dare you to contradict him! Unless you're Chuck Norris in which case I just say "neener neener" so you can understand me.
Fred
"It's called self-deprecating humor. I'm a male, so I get to make fun of men."
Assuming you're a man, saying "all men are stupid" deprecates you --- that's 1 person --- and 3 billion other people.
It's 3 billion times more *other*-deprecating than self-deprecating.
Not saying racist and sexist jokes aren't funny.
But they're not self-deprecating.
Needing the teller to belong to the group the joke targets, ain't about self-deprecation on the teller's part. It's about what sort of things an audience is prepared to listen to, and from whom.
And your logic isn't so great either. The fact that the Y chromosome is changing more rapidly does not mean that "males are evolving more rapidly than females". Here's a hint: entire male human being != Y chromosome. The Y chromosome represents a pretty tiny amount of genetic material, and doesn't have much of a function other than to control the development of male sexual characteristics. To say that men as a whole are "evolving more quickly" because a tiny amount of their genetic material changes at a faster rate than the other 45 chromosomes is, frankly, kind of dumb.
But hey - coming up with a more accurate headline wouldn't drive as many page views, now would it.
... but this is just dumb on its face. First of all, it's really hard to argue that plastic surgery has "drastically reduced selection pressure" on women, when even today, not that many women actually get plastic surgery (relative to the female population). Second - who's most likely to get plastic surgery? Women of child-bearing age? Or older women? You get one guess. Finally, what basis is there to assume that, say, having a boob job makes you more likely to bear more (or fewer, I can't quite figure out your argument) children? Given that anyone who can afford plastic surgery can also afford birth control, I think it's pretty unlikely that there's any correlation at all.
I know that most here believe evolution IS a fact, but just wanted to point out the the so called scientific experiment done is predicated on the foundation that evolution is a fact. So uses the conclusion at your own risk.
I think you're correct about society's portrayal of men, which is frequently pretty bad. But let's not blame the women's movement. I read a couple of feminist blogs, and in addition to the expected coverage of discrimination against women, they spend a fair amount of time bitching about these stupid "men are stupid" portrayals. Just today in Broadsheet (which is part of Salon), there was a post demolishing some dumbass who had written an opinion piece to the effect that male contraceptives were a waste of time because 1) men were too dumb to remember to take them, and 2) no woman would ever be able to take a man's word that he was on the "male pill". So yeah - that stuff is out there. But actual feminists are about freedom from sexual stereotyping for everyone... not just for women.
I'd mod you up. I wish people could understand that feminism isn't some kind of zero-sum game that involves women achieving superiority over men. The end of silly sexual stereotypes is good for EVERYONE.
The idea that rapid changes in the Y chromosome is somehow the equivalent to "males evolve faster than females" is 1) unjustified by the article, and 2) just plain dumb on its face. But given the choice between an accurate headline and a headline that will draw more page views... the choice is obvious, right?
Does she roll her eyes when she says it?
Let's face it, everyone initially starts off as a woman but only a select few of us are chosen to evolve into something better. We're just better species with the better chromosomes.
If we evolve to have vaginas on our hands we may very well wipe out females.
Relax, fellow male people. Have you even read the article? It is about chimps, not human Y chromosome evolving. The human was the one compared against. Read the rest of the article and you will be enlightened to know how nature works to provide competition advantage for the most coming of chimpanzee folks. I hope same kind of evolution would not be necessary for humans, BTW. [quote] By conducting the first comprehensive interspecies comparison of Y chromosomes, Whitehead Institute researchers have found considerable differences in the genetic sequences of the human and chimpanzee Ys... [/quote]
It could simply be taken as a form of compliment - specifically, by way of self-deprecation.
"Self-criticism is in fact self-praise. It shows how much one can spare."
In this light, political correctness can be seen as just a reflection of the victim's continuing powerlessness.
Male primates have a Y chromosome which is far smaller than the X chromosome so the impact of a constant mutation rate on the Y in contrast to the X should be that Y genes have higher probability of mutation than X over a given period of time. Evolution is partially mutation rate dependent ergo evolution of the Y proceeds faster.
Seems pretty obvious yet why did people imagine the Y was stagnate? Magic DNA in Y that is immune to the laws of chemistry and physics with regard to mutation rates?!
"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."
There seems to be a lot of stuff in biology that is too superficially examined to pass the laugh test. One-Gene-One-Phenotype is another one of those that was so obviously going to be wrong, simply based on graph theory. Then again, why do many people chose biology as a science major? Avoiding math! That's a good part of the problem right there.
You can't compare the evolutionary rates of males and females by comparing between the X and Y chromosomes.Both males and females have X chromosomes for one. The X chromosome doesn't necessarily determine female-ness, while the Y chromosome has the SRY (Sex-determining Region of Y) gene that determines male-ness. Evolution of the X genes affect both sexes, while Y genes only the male. Of course it'll look like they evolve faster.
To be a bit more specific, you need some random mutation, reproduction with genetic crossover and a fitness function which is your physical necessitation. Even without an environmental pressure you'll still get genetic drift from mutations which aren't being selected for or against.
.evom ton seod gis eht