I question the group selection implied by this statement: “the better the chances of more births and the human race continuing on in the face of, you know, lots of dying people.” Evolution tends not to care much about races or species continuing. Evolution is all about you and yours (your offspring, that is). The evolutionary reasoning in this case is not that the human race continues, but that girls would be more likely to mate and produce offspring when things are tough. So, if your genes want to continue their existence, they’d have more luck if they found themselves in a girl rather than a boy when times are tough. Evolution seems to favor this me-me-me approach, even when it is bad for a species.

Comstock, by that reasoning it would make more sense to produce males. Males would be more likely to pass on their genes more prolifically as they can sucessfully mate 24/7/365 where females mate sucessfully about 60 days out of the year. Plus, a sucessful pregnancy puts a female out of the mating pool for 9 months whereas a male could impregnate tons more females in that time. Just thinking here.

That’s funny. At my work, we’ve had a dozen babies born in the last year. Ten were boys.

Amanda, the real question is did YOU read what I wrote! Read Comstock’s post, then read mine. For the survival of the species it would be more advantageous to produce females, to propogate your genes it would be more advantageous to produce males. Buying more bulls doesn’t get you more calves, only more cows gets you more calves. If propagation of a set genes is the question, any bull is related to more calves than is any single cow. I’m probably not as dumb as you seem to think I am, successful reproduction is how I make my living.

Good grief! Does no one grasp this! I didn’t argue against that Cole! Comstock said that evolution favors me and mine. That means MY genes, not the most babies. If I produce a boy, he can father dozens of babies a year making my genes spread far and wide. If I produce a female, she can produce 1.2 babies per year. Its how you frame the question. Is the evolutionary principle expansion of the species, or propagation of you genes? Cole, yeah, more females makes more babies possible; but the one male will have more genetic influence on the population than any of the females. My arguement, has been, and still is with Comstock’s quote “if your genes want to continue their existence, they’d have more luck if they found themselves in a girl rather than a boy when times are tough.” The question is a me-and-mine gene selection (favors males) or a population growth selection (favors females).