From an evolutionary perspective, what should one expect as differences?
Aretae's claim:
The biggest factors differentiating men from women should be around risk.
Suppose that low-risk behavior in women tended to result in ~2.1 kids per woman (after disease, death). What would high risk behavior result in? Probably 1.1 kids per high-risk woman. Dead woman has no more kids...successful risk taken results in barely any positive reproductive benefit. Evolution has a STRONG pressure for women to risk-averse.
On the other hand, men have a completely different reproductive success curve. No risk in men is likely to result in 0 kids...while more risky behavior has some chance of resulting in death, and also zero kids, but some chance of resulting in lots of kids. And the upside for men is HUGE. While a woman's reproductive success is limited almost exclusively by disease and accident...a man's reproductive success is limited by the number of women he's making babies with...and perhaps endurance in some strange cases...It's probably impossible (IRL, not in math) for a man to do better than 100x the reproductive success of an average woman. But it's also impossible for a woman to (by actions chosen) do better than 2x the reproductive success of an average ancestral woman.
Of course, when I say this...I am speaking statistically. I would expect that ~90% of men would have a higher built-in risk-preference than the 90th %ile woman.
Question 1: How much does testosterone impact risk preference?
Question 2: what results from high risk-preference vs. low risk-preference?
1. Dangerous conflict.
2. Entrepreneurialism
3. Opinion different than ones peers
4. Pursuing difficult paths
5. Advanced Math/Hard sciences
6. Career paths without credentialing
7. Intense, single-minded focus (if you're focused in the wrong spot, you lose)
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6 comments:
What do math and science have to do with risk-taking?
Zack,
Thanks for calling that out, and welcome to the blog.
I've helped to teach math to folks at many levels (Kindergarden-College Math Major Senior).I argue that the reason that girls don't do as well in math classes as the level goes up is that girls (tend to) prefer a procedure, and boys prefer to try shit.
At higher levels of math (after pre-algebra), the intuition that you develop by trying shit is indispensable. No one ever got to be a math major or a physicist or a computer programmer by being right a lot. Mostly, you get there by being wrong a lot...and the better you are, the more different things you've tried (and often failed).
Furthermore, (and this is stretching more), Math and science are ego-risking. There's no option, if you're wrong, to blame the teacher for not liking your essay. You're right, or you're wrong.
You realize, of course, that making such double plus ungood statements makes you an Enemy of the People, don't you?
I would throw an environmental component in: in a low resource environment, there may be no upside for men to "pump and dump", since no child would survive without two parents. Men would care for the child, indirectly by caring for the mother, but would probably take on some risks in hunting: travel farther for game, e.g. Intelligence would be rewarded here: gather info and make a decision on which game to pursue.
RSF,
You have to reach pretty low resources before you hit: no child would survive.
I think the !Kung of the Kalahari desert may live in a low enough resource environment that the basic social unit is the family, not the tribe...but I can't say that we have any other examples of that-low resource environments.
I'm not sure hwo much the dyadic family is that correct unit apart from that though. Mostly, we have examples (in modern HG society) where there's a notable male mortality from warfare and fights over women...and a notable female mortality from childbirth...and the kids do alright.
I was thinking along the lines of northern Europe-Asia versus Mediterranean-tropics. If you have good climate and soils, your children will be lost to predators, disease, and parasites: go for numbers. If you have to gather fuel and ration food, your kids face starvation and freezing to death: apply some quality time.
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