Roy F. Baumeister (2010) - It’s not a trick
question, and it’s not 50%. True, about half the people who ever lived were
women, but that’s not the question. We’re asking about all the people who ever
lived who have a descendant living today […] Recent research using DNA analysis
answered this question […] Today’s human population is descended from twice as
many women as men. I think this difference is the single most under-appreciated
fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something
like maybe 80% of women but
only 40% of men reproduced.
[…] For
women throughout history the odds of reproducing have been
pretty good […] Why was it so rare for a hundred women to get together and
build a ship and sail off to explore unknown regions, whereas men have fairly
regularly done such things? But taking chances like that would be stupid, from
the perspective of a biological organism seeking to reproduce. They might drown
or be killed by savages or catch a disease. For women, the optimal thing to do
is go along with the crowd, be nice, play it safe. The odds are good that men
will come along and offer sex and you’ll be able to have babies. All that
matters is choosing the best offer. We’re descended from women who played it
safe.
For men,
the outlook was radically different. If you go along with the crowd and play it
safe, the odds are you won’t have children. Most men who ever lived did not
have descendants who are alive today. Their lines were dead ends. Hence it was
necessary to take chances, try new things, be creative, explore other
possibilities. Sailing off into the unknown may be risky, and you might drown
or be killed or whatever, but then again if you stay home you won’t reproduce
anyway. We’re most descended from the type of men who made the risky voyage and
managed to come back rich. We’re descended from men who took chances (and were lucky).
[…] Most women have only a few children, and hardly any have more than a
dozen — but many fathers have had more
than a few, and some men have actually had several dozen, even hundreds of
kids. In terms of the biological competition to produce offspring, then, men
outnumbered women both among the losers and among the biggest winners […] Experts
estimate Genghis Khan had several hundred and perhaps more than a thousand
children. He took big risks and eventually conquered most of the known world.
For him, the big risks led to huge payoffs in offspring. My point is that no
woman, even if she conquered twice as much territory as Genghis Khan, could
have had a thousand children. Striving for greatness in that sense offered the
human female no such biological payoff. For the man, the possibility was there,
and so the blood of Genghis Khan runs through a large segment of today’s human
population. By definition, only a few men can achieve greatness, but for the
few men who do, the gains have been real. And we are descended from those great
men much more than from other men. Remember, most of the mediocre men left no
descendants at all.
