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TRADUZIR |  |
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"Altruist Survivor" effects are seen within a species: humans.
The smaller, weaker female is typically more stable, more intelligent 40 more altruistic and longer-living than the larger and stronger male.
Recent research shows that females are more than twice as competent at "social cognition"; ie. reaching correct conclusions - about people, motives and situations - and more readily. (See Nature, vol. 387, 12 June 1997) & 41 & 42
But evolution hurts. We all might feel the guilt of being attracted by a "super-model" type who may be very different from the partner we love.
There is a reason for this. If free to choose, our own partner is our real choice for our future but our bodies do not wholly trust us. When not over-ridden by early conditioning, 43 they hold a fail-safe "memory" of recorded sexual ideals, probably hidden deep within the `old brain'. 44
That's an ancient region, and out of our control: 45 this "memory" necessarily dates back millennia.
So, although the ad-man and the pornographer tempt us to take a reverse-step with "beefcake" or "cheesecake" super-models, we shouldn't feel too guilty if only tempted.
We look to the future. 46
"People cannot be adapted to the present, or to the future; they can only be adapted to the past." - Matt Ridley
"The Red Queen - Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature"" 1993 ISBN 0-670-843571
What might this tell us?
"The human body and its genes are obsolescent, lagging far behind our civilization
And even that civilization lags behind our minds and wishes" - "Altruist Survivor - Options"
Sex, or division of a species into different genders, 'invented' and abandoned many times on Earth, dates from long ago 47 - but only yesterday by the cosmic calendar.
It may have happened in response to adversity, which, apart from sheer bad luck comes as two main types:-
i) lack of other organisms for you to eat (plants / animals),
ii) excess of other organisms eating you (parasites / predators)
And a-sexual groups do increase as you move Equator-wards
(because food is scarcer at higher latitudes),
and the higher you go
(because parasites / predators are scarcer at higher altitudes).
In other words - "Where the living is easy, a `natural' sexual direction is lost."
Now, who mentioned society's pervy elites? 45
Males now serve different purposes in different Earth-type animals.
Those that didn't remain useful have disappeared, their species reverting to non-sexual, a-sexual methods of reproduction - the earlier, default mode for all life.
So many (non-mammalian) animals give birth only to females, from eggs that do not now need fertilization by male sperm.
Extreme life styles are led by Amazonogenetic female-only species; they use males from other species to initiate their egg-laying but the female's eggs do not need genetic content from those males.
The deep-sea Anglerfish exemplifies something discussed elsewhere: 45 change of phenotype - observed characteristics - without change of genes.
A juvenile anglerfish is neutral-gender for a while. Lacking contact with others it will go on to become a huge female - about 100 times larger.
However, if contacting a female, the tiny juvenile remains tiny - but becomes a male, attaching itself permanently to the female's body as an extra `organ.' This strange transformation results only from environmental stimuli. 48
Many species have taken another course - female societies which produce "males on demand" like haplodiploids below:-
Human System
"DIPLOID"
human females have two large complex "X" chromosomes.
human males have only one "X" - plus a smaller simpler "Y" chromosome.
All siblings are 1/2 genetically related.
(Suspect "Y" chromosome contains lots of `OFF' keys - because the human template is female. Update 1 2005 - "Y" suspicion verified Update 2 2005 template suspicion verified )
(some) Insects' System
"HAPLODIPLOID"
females are `diploid' - born from fertilized eggs with two chromosomes.
males are `haploid' - born from unfertilized eggs with only one chromosome.
Sisters (only) are 3/4 genetically related.
"Males on demand"
In the extreme haplodiploid case of Histiostoma murchiei - a mite parasitic on earthworm cocoons - a lone female lays a handful of eggs to produce a few haploid males which will mate with her "within 3 or 4 days of being laid as eggs" - then die-off. The female can now lay many more eggs which are exclusively diploid, producing around 500 long-lived females - fathered by dead brothers.
Even though variations of haplodiploid system are successful for many small animals, including all of the ants 49 bees 400 and wasps, it is not necessary for a social species - for we know that the socially organized termites (relatives of cockroaches) are diploid.
Human diploid gender difference cancels-out DNA 'typos' - bad mutations - while introducing genetic diversity in each generation to i) maybe counter evolving diseases (parasitism), ii) maybe cope with possible future environmental changes.
In the past it also allowed half of our species, females, to be nurturers and real organizers while the other half, males, put on bulk for defence/aggression, becoming slightly psychotic 401 non-nurturers.
But most of Earth's males are smaller than their female partners.
"Nature's more common pattern - smaller males pursuing an evolutionary role as sources of sperm . . . We human males are the oddballs" Stephen Jay Gould's essay "Big Fish, Little Fish" - Penguin, ISBN 0-14-013481-6
However sexual dimorphism - large males and small females or vice versa - while still retained by some harem-gathering species, seems to lose even limited efficiency when a species becomes more intelligent.
Humans became tool-users and planners. Tools and ideas are equalizers 402
There is always a balance between benefits and penalties, weighted slightly in favour of the system currently running. However, if the penalties of gender are too dangerous then a species must abandon it or go extinct.
Ergo - if greedy and violent males 403 & 404 become too great a danger to our species they could make types of `masculinity' non-viable
The scales could be tipping, even now. [See notes below]
Note: male physiology is an expendable "quick and dirty fix" 405 - cellular, DNA and hormone actions are simple and crude: easily over-reacting but not easily altered.
Females are `complete humans' with more complex cellular, DNA and hormone structure - more densely packed with information.
The upside? Women are more aware of harmful social and environmental factors: potential dangers, pollutants etc.
Downside? Women's more sensitive cellular, DNA, hormonal interactions are more readily altered and damaged by 'abusive' conditions, exposure to forced genetic change or viral invasion, 406 & 407 toxins, radiation etc.
Example? When high-speed, high altitude flight nudges cellular activity and density in one direction or another [Women - Warning 408] - women suffer more damage or trauma than men.
A warning of `flight trauma' - damaging effects of high altitude, high speed flight - was published by "Perceptions" in September 2000. 409
However, real journalists had to pressurize both the corporations and gov'ts before they would respond even part-way truthfully or responsibly. 410
There was no public knowledge of 'flight trauma' at that time - unless you read "Perceptions".
However, we have also shown how mental stability of males - subject to testosterone bias and pressure - seems more easily disturbed by `road-rage' and by the `air-rage' effect 411 of flight trauma.
See notes re consciousness and astronauts 412 & 413
1. We have already almost achieved the technology for producing human offspring without contribution by a male.
2. Mythology / folklore even tells us this (virgin birth) has happened in the past - without technology?
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