Males can take many routes to reproductive success

Good article. I note, though, that you coyly refer to "sneaks". The term of art used by population biologists, though, is actually "sneaky f***kers".

I prefer the correct technical term - it puts me in mind of so many people I've met. :-)

It should come as no surprise that any ecosystem will have multiple niches that the inhabitants fill in multiple ways. In this case, the ecosystem is confined to variety within a single species in the context of sexual reproduction but the principle is the same. Indeed, when we look at humans we can see a similar variety: the "Arnold" strategy of being big, the "Woody" strategy of being funny, the "Sugar" strategy of being aggressive and acquiring great wealth, and so on and so forth. Every strategy currently on display must have been sufficiently successful in the past to have been conserved as a useful behavior; any unsuccessful strategy must have been lost to the gene pool. What is more interesting that simply enumerating the various types of strategy, surely, would be to look at the boundary conditions so that we gain a better sense of what constrains us in our range of behaviors and whether or not expansion of our repertoire is feasible over the medium-term.

This makes the existential challenge of being a man even greater. Should I now act as a hunk or a troubador? How do my chances rate as a show-off compared to a sneaker?

Very entertainingly written, but still with an excellent understanding of the science!

Cue for an avalanche of wildly extrapolated conclusions about how this theory can be used to gain a comparative advantage in the ever-so-important subject of human copulation.

Some people never learn.

Good article. Pity about the grammatical slip-ups... Dr Evans’s or Dr. Evans'?

I don't think human females would appreciate "sneaking."

"Sneaks" sound like rapists. And while no one likes to think about it much, rape is still highly prevalent in our species, indicating that, if in part genetic, a "rape strategy" does have some survival value. Has anyone studied this?

@Sueco: I know we sometimes test to take the results of these animal studies too far by extrapolating them to humans. But what do you mean by "never learning?" Why do we do these studies if not to gain some insight into human behavior (even if only to delineate the boundaries between us and the rest of the animal kingdom)?

For singular names ending in "s," the Chicago Manual of Style adds an "s" after the apostrophe, as in "Charles's bike." If your work or assignment requires you to adhere to one convention or another, then do so. Otherwise, either form is acceptable so long as it is consistent throughout a single piece of written work.

I chose the Beta male. Alphas must have something wrong with them to try to impress and show off so much. Turn off.

@receptor75
But what do you mean by "never learning?"

What I mean by never learning is that some people always seem eager to explain their Alpha behavior(or lack of it) by rationalizing the latest theories in behavioral studies. Truth is that these approximations can never be a useful comparison for human behavior, due to the fact that human beings are simultaneously both cultural and instinctual beings.

Cultural variation and its interactions with the primitive parts of our brain is so poorly understood that any attempt to extrapolate behavioral theories into practical guidelines is doomed to be a gigantic clusterfuck, and probably cause more harm than good.

@receptor75

I agree. Many ideologies underplay the massive role that primitive impulses and instincts play in our society. These ideologies tend to stress the idea that humans should "overcome" their nature and move towards a particular society or state of mind. To give you an example, monogamy is the overwhelmingly used form of parenting in most societies. Even within intolerant societies where monogamy has been sanctioned as the only legal frame for sexual activity, illegitimate children hold always at around 10% of the population, a fact that wasn't discovered until the arrival of modern genetics. As old roman law has it: "Pater semper incertus est“, or: The father is always uncertain. This seems to be a clear sign that while society may claim to uphold certain mores, we are as ever captive to the passions and impulses of our bodies (read primitive brains). Anthropologists name this the divide between "claimed" and "factual" moral values, which provides a rather interesting conflict.

At the same time, there have been of social theories that justify their actions on the "natural" order of things, as perceived by a particular theory on a certain time period. The danger that these ideas have and always have had, is that they are more often concerned with concentrating power to those defending this "natural" order than with understanding what this natural order might be.

Human beings are, in a very real sense, not part of nature. We are the first and only species that has begun to employ secondary evolutionary structures (eg. culture) as our primary mode of survival and adaptation. Culture is the reason humans can inhabit habitats as diverse as the polar circle and the tropics without significant biological or instinctual adaptation. Instead, we adapt with our cognitive brains, passing and adapting contextually relevant information through generations. We literary use large brains as an alternate evolutionary weapon to large fangs. As such we are unique in the earth's evolutionary history, and should beware of drawing behavioral parallels to other species.

@sueco

That's interesting. I've been thinking recently that the cultural layer is pretty shallow compared to the instinctual ocean beneath. The modern human brain has been evolving for millions of years. The prefrontal cortex is only the latest phase of that evolution. And cultural differentiation started yesterday in comparison.

Alot of cultural theories and interpretations of events that you see in the news sometimes sound to me like after-the-fact attempts to explain away basic "instinctual" urges. Fear and aggression get you pretty far as a basic framework for understanding the world these days.

No, we are not living in the jungle. And unlike animals we are responsible for our actions. But I tend to think the "instinctual" theories have more explanatory power than you do. As for the next step - whether we should turn those theories into public policy - definitely a much longer discussion.

Cheers.