Did Racquel Welch lead Stone Age man astray?See, too much clubbing reduces longevity. Or somethin'.
Posted on 10/30/2007 6:30:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Roger HighfieldThe reason that women outlive men by an average of around five years is due to sex, harems and violence in the Stone Age, according to a study published today... our prehistoric male ancestors kept female harems and fought over them to procreate: because male life was nasty, brutish and short, evolutionary forces focused on making males big and strong, rather than long lived... What they find is that the difference in life span between males and females in creatures such as red deer, prairie dogs, lions, baboons, geese, mongooses, wild dogs, beavers and others grows in direct proportion to the degree to which an animal's society is polygynous. that is a society where one male enjoys the attentions of several female breeding partners... In animal societies where males protect harems from the attention of their rivals until they are toppled, the males age faster and have shorter life spans... "This effect applies quite generally," said Prof Clutton Brock. "If you look at royalty, you find that kings do not live as long as queens."
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Did Racquel Welch lead Stone Age man astray?See, too much clubbing reduces longevity. Or somethin'.
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Seems to me the researcher has an agenda here. Female longevity has greatly benefited from better health care. In prehistoric times, food surpluses led to lower mortality rates and longer lifespans, but also to larger family size (and also made civilization possible). As the agrarian percentage of the population declined due to mechanization, the need for larger families declined. And of course, there have been political pressures toward so-called zero population growth. |
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Where is Captain Obvious when ya need him, huh? /g
YEC INTREP
Another “scientific finding” that is nothing but fancy guessing. By the same reasoning of this article, there is absolutely no reason that women live twice as long as their reproductive capability. Yet, such inconvenient facts don’t slow down such wild conjecture even for a second.
I might as well go find a rock at random along the road and create a 300 page thesis about how it got exactly where it is. After all, I have the strong supporting evidence that it is, in fact, exactly where my hypothesis says it must be.
Really? Are you forgetting the evolutionary advantage that older women could provide, in primitive societies, to their children and grandchildren? From caring for the young, retaining and passing on knowledge, to food preparation while the adults are out hunting and gathering -- the list of beneficial contributions is quite long.
And with evolution, all of this counts! If you help your grandchildren survive to reproduce, your genes are passed on to still another generation.
"is due to sex, harems and violence in the Stone Age"
Oh.....I thought they meant *now*.
Do not touch ancient holy rock! It was put there at the beginning of time by my ancestors as a totem to Sly Fox, the Trickster who follows squirrel as summer follows spring. It is sacred to we native Fugawi!
I figured someone would, uh, come up with that one. I should have known it would be you. ;’)
If the article is complete, the Cambridge professor seems to attribute the weakness in lifespan selection forces in males solely to a brutish lifestyle. If in fact evolutionary selection forces are at work here, the professor seemingly overlooks the fact that males can produce viable young for a longer period during their lives than females. This very important fact would seem to deserve at least a mention in this research because possibly it was the extended breeding capacity in males that resulted in a selection for shorter lives?
It would seem that the Telegraph has taken some serious biological research and "selected for" the parts that fits their agenda. Fortunately evolutionary forces select for characteristics beneficial to the species and not a political ideology. Hopefully some day, economic forces will select for the extinction of these news rags.
"Ahem. Next time, try doing some research first."
Salamander beat me to it.... with a club in a cave???
Evolutionary forces making selections for specific reasons? You’re sounding dangerously close to advocating intelligent design.
I am nothing if not predictably unpredictable.....:)
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