‘Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?’ — George Carlin
Can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest.”
{ Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859 }
A new analysis suggests that most socially dominant males contribute no more to the genetic pool than do their supposed inferiors.
“An individual really doesn’t have the opportunity to set up things so their genetic information pervades the gene pool a long time in the future,” says mathematician Joseph Watkins, of the University of Arizona in Tucson. “It could happen because life is chaotic.”
Theories on how genes flow through populations of organisms generally support this idea, which has been dubbed neutrality. But some anthropologists argue that cultural dominance can seal a man’s legacy. For instance, a rich and powerful father can ensure the status of his sons and grandsons.
“Evolution is an equal opportunity system. No single group is going to persist as the dominant group for very long before something changes,” says Michael Hammer, a co-author of the study.
Wars, climate change, and diseases have all sent dominant males careening off their pedestals, he says.
