Your article made me think about many of the social theories falling out of the human genome project and comparisons with ancient DNA. The first thing I thought of was the 2:1 ratio of sexual "success" that is evident in DNA. That is, women are twice as successful as men at reproducing. Put another way, on average only half as many men successfully reproduce as women. Yet another way: we have twice as many mothers as fathers
This made me think of the polygamy thing and comparisons of who wins and who loses (genetically). With polygamous societies, a smaller percentage of (strong successful) men reproduce with most of the women. If you look at the extremes of both ends of the two status hierarchies, the biggest winners are low status females and high status males - the former get better genetic mates and the latter get more genetic mates period. The losers are paradoxically, high status females and, of course, low status males. The high status females lose the singular attention and resources of their high status male which is divided across multiple females and all their children; the low status males are the (incel) losers all the way around.
Monogamy was probably not practiced in any widespread way until the agricultural revolution - this has been argued based on archeology and anthropology and seems to be supported genetically as well. So it's relatively recent in human history. But the 2:1 persisted. And I'll throw out three examples illustrating why I think this is the case.
Many people are getting their DNA sequenced and using this to augment (or correct) their genealogical histories. On friend of mine did this in his early sixties and made a surprising discovery. His maternal grandfather was not in fact his grandfather. His maternal grandmother had conceived his mother with a neighbor. His mother - long dead at this point - had never indicated the slightest clue about this, nor had any of his other relatives. Through Ancestry.com it was actually pretty clear who his real grandfather had been. Second example was a relative in my own family. She had approached me about getting my DNA sequenced several times and for privacy reasons I declined to do it. She eventually got one of her siblings to do it and discovered that her "father" was not in fact her biological father. And - again - nobody in her family had ever whispered any doubts about her paternity before. Unlike my friend, she went through a painful process of contacting her biological father; he was in his eighties, still married to the woman he'd been married to at the time he fathered her, had multiple grown children and was frantic to keep any knowledge of her from them - to the point of begging and offering her money if she didn't.
And my third example was a kid that grew up down the street from me. His father was an anesthesiologist at one of the big San Jose hospitals. We kids couldn't play with his son and if we happened to cross his yard when he was outside he'd yell at us to go away. His son grew up an only child and pretty isolated. Fifteen years later I was living out of state and my mother mailed me a newspaper article about him. It had been discovered that he had two families - he'd secretly married a nurse at his hospital, convincing her, apparently, that he was single. He made her quit working and bought her a house in a distant part of the Bay Area. She had three children by him and he split his time between his two families. He told each wife when he was gone that he was sleeping at the hospital due to work obligations. The reason it came out was that the second, younger wife was divorcing him and her lawyer had found out through investigating his finances. At this point he committed suicide, leaving a big mess for both these women. This incident is of a different nature than my first two anecdotes, because the women were unwilling participants in this "harem". But genetically, it is the same thing.
So here's the punch line: in all THREE cases the father was a doctor (MD). In other words, a much higher status than average man. I think the principal that is being illustrated here is fairly common. In a monogamous society, many women may have to settle for a lower status male than they would like in order to gain an ally through life willing to share his efforts and resources and help raise and protect her children. But many, when the opportunity presents itself, will opt for a chance at "superior genes" - unconsciously, of course.
Modern contraception is probably going to change all this in unpredictable ways. As is DNA sequencing. Another one of these genetic curiosities is that among Asians (central and eastern) something like 8 or 12 percent (seen both numbers) are direct descendants of Ghenghis Khan. They call this sort of thing a genetic bottleneck - the amount of genetic variation pinches down to a fraction of normal in the Y-chromosome in this case. Maybe if modern women can reproduce with who ever they want (I'm sure we'll be mass-producing Brad Pitt or whoever is the current rage's sperm in for-profit sperm banks soon - probably available through Amazon) which will cut out most other males from reproducing it is going to end up having incalcuably weird consequences.
> A study from 2010 shows that women rate more masculine faces
> higher when they ovulate. But that study has failed to replicate (1, 2).
More masculine features are more archaic, not more attractive. Femininity is attractive in female faces; neither femininity nor masculinity is overall more attractive in male faces. Men with desirable physical traits are tall, have broad shoulders for their waists, and have relatively more muscle and less fat than average.
> There seems to be some primal female attraction to men who cause
> women distress... Male dominance takes away the need for females
> to fake levels of sexual agency that they just don't possess.
This is hilarious. I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying it's not true, but it's definitely hilarious.
I wonder how the increased availability of hormonal based birth control factors into all this. There is evidence that the birth control pill changes women’s hormones to prefer men who display more feminine traits and feminine facial features. This may explain why young women these days are increasingly preferring men that look like pop stars over the stereotypical sports player Chad.
What can be destroyed by freedom should be destroyed.
Your article made me think about many of the social theories falling out of the human genome project and comparisons with ancient DNA. The first thing I thought of was the 2:1 ratio of sexual "success" that is evident in DNA. That is, women are twice as successful as men at reproducing. Put another way, on average only half as many men successfully reproduce as women. Yet another way: we have twice as many mothers as fathers
This made me think of the polygamy thing and comparisons of who wins and who loses (genetically). With polygamous societies, a smaller percentage of (strong successful) men reproduce with most of the women. If you look at the extremes of both ends of the two status hierarchies, the biggest winners are low status females and high status males - the former get better genetic mates and the latter get more genetic mates period. The losers are paradoxically, high status females and, of course, low status males. The high status females lose the singular attention and resources of their high status male which is divided across multiple females and all their children; the low status males are the (incel) losers all the way around.
Monogamy was probably not practiced in any widespread way until the agricultural revolution - this has been argued based on archeology and anthropology and seems to be supported genetically as well. So it's relatively recent in human history. But the 2:1 persisted. And I'll throw out three examples illustrating why I think this is the case.
Many people are getting their DNA sequenced and using this to augment (or correct) their genealogical histories. On friend of mine did this in his early sixties and made a surprising discovery. His maternal grandfather was not in fact his grandfather. His maternal grandmother had conceived his mother with a neighbor. His mother - long dead at this point - had never indicated the slightest clue about this, nor had any of his other relatives. Through Ancestry.com it was actually pretty clear who his real grandfather had been. Second example was a relative in my own family. She had approached me about getting my DNA sequenced several times and for privacy reasons I declined to do it. She eventually got one of her siblings to do it and discovered that her "father" was not in fact her biological father. And - again - nobody in her family had ever whispered any doubts about her paternity before. Unlike my friend, she went through a painful process of contacting her biological father; he was in his eighties, still married to the woman he'd been married to at the time he fathered her, had multiple grown children and was frantic to keep any knowledge of her from them - to the point of begging and offering her money if she didn't.
And my third example was a kid that grew up down the street from me. His father was an anesthesiologist at one of the big San Jose hospitals. We kids couldn't play with his son and if we happened to cross his yard when he was outside he'd yell at us to go away. His son grew up an only child and pretty isolated. Fifteen years later I was living out of state and my mother mailed me a newspaper article about him. It had been discovered that he had two families - he'd secretly married a nurse at his hospital, convincing her, apparently, that he was single. He made her quit working and bought her a house in a distant part of the Bay Area. She had three children by him and he split his time between his two families. He told each wife when he was gone that he was sleeping at the hospital due to work obligations. The reason it came out was that the second, younger wife was divorcing him and her lawyer had found out through investigating his finances. At this point he committed suicide, leaving a big mess for both these women. This incident is of a different nature than my first two anecdotes, because the women were unwilling participants in this "harem". But genetically, it is the same thing.
So here's the punch line: in all THREE cases the father was a doctor (MD). In other words, a much higher status than average man. I think the principal that is being illustrated here is fairly common. In a monogamous society, many women may have to settle for a lower status male than they would like in order to gain an ally through life willing to share his efforts and resources and help raise and protect her children. But many, when the opportunity presents itself, will opt for a chance at "superior genes" - unconsciously, of course.
Modern contraception is probably going to change all this in unpredictable ways. As is DNA sequencing. Another one of these genetic curiosities is that among Asians (central and eastern) something like 8 or 12 percent (seen both numbers) are direct descendants of Ghenghis Khan. They call this sort of thing a genetic bottleneck - the amount of genetic variation pinches down to a fraction of normal in the Y-chromosome in this case. Maybe if modern women can reproduce with who ever they want (I'm sure we'll be mass-producing Brad Pitt or whoever is the current rage's sperm in for-profit sperm banks soon - probably available through Amazon) which will cut out most other males from reproducing it is going to end up having incalcuably weird consequences.
> Some of the men who had sex last year tried two, three, four or ten women,
> while the women in question tested fewer men.
This is not likely to be the case in actual fact, due to prostitution:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.210392097
> A study from 2010 shows that women rate more masculine faces
> higher when they ovulate. But that study has failed to replicate (1, 2).
More masculine features are more archaic, not more attractive. Femininity is attractive in female faces; neither femininity nor masculinity is overall more attractive in male faces. Men with desirable physical traits are tall, have broad shoulders for their waists, and have relatively more muscle and less fat than average.
> There seems to be some primal female attraction to men who cause
> women distress... Male dominance takes away the need for females
> to fake levels of sexual agency that they just don't possess.
This is hilarious. I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying it's not true, but it's definitely hilarious.
I wonder how the increased availability of hormonal based birth control factors into all this. There is evidence that the birth control pill changes women’s hormones to prefer men who display more feminine traits and feminine facial features. This may explain why young women these days are increasingly preferring men that look like pop stars over the stereotypical sports player Chad.