The differences between Men and Women

My friend Lloyd, a fellow in his late 80's who continues to educate himself on big topics, wrote the following

Michael,

Books that were an important discovery for me are Richard Dawkins'
"The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene". In all of his writings,
he cites examples of how Darwin's work on
evolution-by-natural-selection can be explained at the DNA level.  A
side issue was the suggestion that many of the wired-in male/female
differences are explained by the Hunter (male)/Gathering (female)
division of labor by early humans.

The attached clip from the May 1 issue of "The Economist" is along
similar lines.

Lloyd

My response...

My anthro studies (that began almost 40 years ago, is that possible???) informs me of the following:

1. Yes, evolution happens at the molecular level, since that is where "beneficial" mutations occur.
      What people fail to realize is just how long 100,000 or 1,000,000 years actually is!
     
2. The physical fossil record is so sparse (in terms of numbers of individual examples and through time) and the need by academicians to publish!, that generalizations about our ancestry are highly suspect!
      a. Bullshit Alert!

3. Lately, there have been two new strains of closely related human-like species (or sub-species, since I don't know if we could have interbred and obtained fertile offspring (the definition of a species - that which can mate with fertile offspring as the result (unlike Horses and Donkeys for example, that most frequently produce sterile Mules) that co-existed on the planet with us until just a few thousand years ago.
       a.  Shows how little we actually know about our ancestry, once again.
       b.  See:  Homo_floresiensis aka hobbits!
       c.  See also:  A new human specie or just a pinky!

4.  Just this year, it has been posited (and given loads of press this week) that we and Neanderthals were not only capable of interbreeding successfully, but that our (Caucasian) genes are made up of 1-3% elements common to both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.
      a.  This is a rather complicated hypothesis, but does NOT surprise me, I have known humans who look like Neanderthals (although without any of the stigmatization!).  Had a camp counselor in MN who was extraordinarily Neanderthal like, and a great college football player!

5.  What you mention, regards men/women differences, hunting vs. gathering, has been observed in several different ways.
      a.  Recently read an article regarding male/female shopping strategies (how each gender actually finds things within grocery stores!) that reflects our modern "implementation" of our gender differences.
           i.  I'd hesitate to say which came first however...our natural tendencies to hunt or gather depending on gender, or, how our hunting vs. gathering affected our gender tendencies.
          ii.  Love to better understand Chimpanzee (for example) gender differences.
     b.  Women smell and taste things more accurately/acutely than men for example, since they are charged with ensuring that children eat healthy and not spoiled or otherwise poisonous food stuff...and, so, it makes sense that they also performed the gathering duties since that also made up far more of our nutritional intake than hunting did. 
      c.  Hunting is generally a far more dangerous activity than gathering, so this also points to having men do it, since women are in need of protection from risk as much as possible, to ensure offspring health, once again...
             
6.  What I also observe is the following...WE ARE ALL, EACH OF US, THE "MISSING LINK"!
This is true, as you have discovered with your observations, since evolution operates on POPULATIONS not INDIVIDUALS...

Had some fun early today writing all of the above, thanks for the opportunity to be what I really ought to be, some kind of professor instead of a salesman...perhaps I will win the lottery and actually become one!

7.  I just bought a book called "The eerie silence" (Paul Davies) concerning the lack of evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence.
     a.  I am having great cognitive dissonance as I delay (procrastinate) reading it!
            i.  I don't want to pollute my own observations as to why there are no "aliens" out there
                1) for example, perhaps the universe is just old enough to allow for the first "intelligent" life, humanity.  Therefore, it is only a matter of time for other intelligent "races" to become extant.
                 2) He posits things like - don't look for radio signals (which is what we've been doing for the past few decades) as evidence of other life, there are other far more probable indicators...

As you already know, my firm belief, based on observation of Homo Sapien Sapien = the universe selects against intelligence...

Our recent human experience of so called "intelligent" life will be so short lived in terms of the evolution of the universe that we may as well not have existed at all! 

Or put another way:  While each individual human can be said to have a measure of intelligence, the actual "wisdom" of humanity - to act in concert with Nature for example, and thereby retain a place in the biosphere - is non-existent.  The ironic part is we'll be documenting our demise each step of the way, and won't be able to do a damned thing about it.
--
Cheers,

Frish