I’ve slowly been wading through Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, which I got for Christmas (take that Dawkins! I religious holiday was the reason you got paid for your book! Muhahahaha – Aside, for those who don’t know, Dawkins is about the most outspoken hardcore atheist there is, and that’s why we love him).

The chapter I’ve just read blew my mind. Using the example of elephant seals, Dawkins discusses how species with large differences between the sexes tend towards polygamy. Elephant seals are an extreme case: the males can weigh up to six times more than the females. They use all that extra body-mass to beat other males into submission and claim large harems. In the extreme case, Dawkins says that in one study of elephant seals, 4% of males accounted for 88% of the next generation. The rest of the males apparently moped around watching TV and never getting laid.

Closer to home, Gorilla males have harems (or no women at all) and tend to be twice the size of gorilla females. Gibbon males and females are equal sized and are very monogamous.

So what of humans? “In most physical sports”, writes Dawkins, “every single one of the world’s top hundred men would beat of every single one of the world’s top hundred women”. There are slight, but noticeable differences between the physical prowess of males and females, in other words. It’s plausible that in our recent evolutionary history, we were a “mildly polygamous”. Crazy!

Meanwhile, I’m barely 5′8″, scrawny, bespectacled, uncoordinated, and single.

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