My brain is reading the words and, yet, its comprehension is minimal. Please help!
Here’s the study:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2220124120#executive-summary-abstract
In: Other
It’s saying that in animal species where the males reproduce with multiple different females or “harem” type species a greater portion of male offspring die than in human societies. However within different human societies, ones that practice it – they call it “polygyny” – do have a higher portion of young male deaths than in more monogamous societies.
Imagine if in a big forest, all the animals had a big competition to see who could have the most babies. Some animals, like deer, might choose just one partner, while others, like lions, might have one male with lots of female partners. Scientists wanted to see how this competition works not just in animals, but also in people, from different places and different ways of living.
To do this, they used a special math trick to count how fair or unfair the baby-making competition is. If the math trick gives a zero, it means everyone has an equal chance, just like if every animal or person could win a race. A number bigger than zero means some are winning more than others, and a number less than zero means things are more equal than usual.
They found out that in animals, the winners and losers can be very different depending on if they choose one partner or many. But in people, whether they live by farming, hunting, or in big cities, the competition is a bit more equal, and choosing one partner or many doesn’t change things too much.
They also saw that in places where people have rules about having only one partner, it doesn’t really make the competition more equal. They thought that having both mom and dad around to help raise the kids might make things more fair, and they found some clues that this might be true, but it’s not the whole story.
So, what they learned is that people are a bit different from animals when it comes to this big competition. Even though people can have different rules about partners and living, in the end, everyone has a pretty fair chance in the baby-making race.
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