Xref: utzoo sci.bio:988 soc.men:3052
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From: kevin@chromo.ucsc.edu (Kevin McLoughlin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men
Subject: Re: sexual selection and investment
Message-ID: <2403@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 88 05:03:28 GMT
References: <1988Mar13.160941.22096@utzoo.uucp> <25527@cca.CCA.COM>
Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: kevin@chromo.UUCP (Susan Nordmark)
Organization: Physics Asylum, University of California, Santa Cruz
Lines: 23

In article <25527@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>Human beings, are, as one might expect, very much a special case.  Dimorphism
>in human beings is quite marked.  From this one would expect that humans
>would have sexual patterns similar to other dimorphic primates, with an
>alpha male having primary access to a number of females, and other males
>having very little access.  In actual fact, humans are a strong pair
>bonding species (albeit with surprising variations) and human males make
>a large investment in rearing the young.

Actually, humans are only moderately dimorphic. Examples of species
with a strong degree of dimorphism are gorillas and baboons--in 
these species males may be up to twice as massive as females.
This doesn't happen among humans (of course what's scientifically
relevant here is the degree of dimorphism within the sort of genetically 
homogenous, small interbreeding populations that were the venue
for evolution. Thus we don't compare size differences between Swedish men 
and Vietnamese women, for example, but between Vietnamese men and
Vietnamese women. Under these constraints dimorphism is found to
be moderate.)
-----------
Susan Nordmark
Internet: kevin@chromo.UCSC.edu			
UUCP: ...ucbvax!ucscc!chromo.kevin		Santa Cruz, CA