Tuesday, January 03, 2006
A Burning Question
Please quiet down children and pay attention. You won’t find today’s science lesson taught in any textbooks.
I’m about to make the case that the human female is a higher form of animal than the human male. When the lesson is over you will get to answer the burning question, which is ‘Have I made my case?’.
We’ll start with a review of yesterday’s lesson on evolution. Who remembers the two primal drives which exist all through the animal kingdom?
That’s right Sally, food and procreation. The food enables the individual to live and the procreation enables its genes to go forward one more generation.
Now who knows the two basic strategies followed in procreation?
Very good, Harry! Did everyone hear that? One strategy is to produce many young of which only a few survive and the other is to produce only a few young and try to make certain as many as possible survive.
Let’s review. Fish are a good example. The female lays hundreds of unfertilized eggs and a male releases a cloud of sperm cells over them. Fertilization takes place. Many hundreds of baby fish are born. They’re called fry. Maybe that’s where the expression ‘small fry’ comes from.
Anyway, most of the fry are eaten by larger fish. Only few survive.
Insects too produce many many offspring, most of which get eaten. Think about birds feasting on gypsy moth larvae.
As we get to higher animals, we find the second strategy becoming predominant - the production of fewer young with the parents caring for them after birth.
In humans this has reached a point where generally only one young at a time is produced, and a long period of care is needed before it can fend for itself.
This strategy by the higher animals and humans is controlled entirely by the female. She generally ripens only one egg a month, while human males blithely go on producing hundreds of thousands of sperm cells daily, following the pattern of lower animals.
If the female ripened one hundred eggs at a time, the fat, dumb and happy sperm cells would fertilize them all.
Now for the burning question. Have I made my case? Those of you who believe I have, raise your hands. I see all of the girls’ hands up and none of the boys.
What a surprise!
I’m about to make the case that the human female is a higher form of animal than the human male. When the lesson is over you will get to answer the burning question, which is ‘Have I made my case?’.
We’ll start with a review of yesterday’s lesson on evolution. Who remembers the two primal drives which exist all through the animal kingdom?
That’s right Sally, food and procreation. The food enables the individual to live and the procreation enables its genes to go forward one more generation.
Now who knows the two basic strategies followed in procreation?
Very good, Harry! Did everyone hear that? One strategy is to produce many young of which only a few survive and the other is to produce only a few young and try to make certain as many as possible survive.
Let’s review. Fish are a good example. The female lays hundreds of unfertilized eggs and a male releases a cloud of sperm cells over them. Fertilization takes place. Many hundreds of baby fish are born. They’re called fry. Maybe that’s where the expression ‘small fry’ comes from.
Anyway, most of the fry are eaten by larger fish. Only few survive.
Insects too produce many many offspring, most of which get eaten. Think about birds feasting on gypsy moth larvae.
As we get to higher animals, we find the second strategy becoming predominant - the production of fewer young with the parents caring for them after birth.
In humans this has reached a point where generally only one young at a time is produced, and a long period of care is needed before it can fend for itself.
This strategy by the higher animals and humans is controlled entirely by the female. She generally ripens only one egg a month, while human males blithely go on producing hundreds of thousands of sperm cells daily, following the pattern of lower animals.
If the female ripened one hundred eggs at a time, the fat, dumb and happy sperm cells would fertilize them all.
Now for the burning question. Have I made my case? Those of you who believe I have, raise your hands. I see all of the girls’ hands up and none of the boys.
What a surprise!
