Frequent collisions
It turns out men are stronger than women. Who knew?
Earlier this year, World Rugby caused somewhat of a stir when its draft proposals to ban biological men from playing at the top level of women’s rugby were reported by The Guardian. The proposals were of particular interest because they were in sharp contrast to the rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has loosened its requirements to focus on athletes’ testosterone levels. World Rugby was also the first international sporting federation to indicate such a move, which led to immediate criticism from some quarters that the proposals were “harmful” despite the fact the they were aimed at safeguarding players’ health.
Which never made any sense, seeing as how we’ve always known that men have considerable physical advantages over women. It’s no use pretending this is a brand new concept, because we all know damn well it’s not.
Earlier this month, World Rugby released the final version of its Transgender Guidelines document, confirming that biological men would be barred from playing at the top level of women’s rugby. The reasoning was based on two primary factors that had emerged from the scientific research into the issue: first, the unacceptable risk of injury to female players; and second, the existence of significant performance advantages.
Aka it would be totally unfair and a disaster because men would win everything and they would break women’s necks in the process. It’s really pretty damn simple.
Rugby is a full-contact sport that involves frequent collisions, and there are particular risks to players’ heads and necks. The nature of the sport means that injuries are frequent and, very sadly, they occasionally result in life-altering disabilities. With that in mind, the conclusion reached by World Rugby should not be entirely surprising. However, the pioneering research that underpinned the final decision was compelling and is likely to send shockwaves throughout the sporting world.
The research set out not only the distinct biological advantages that men had over women (including increases in muscle density and increased heart and lung size), but went on to consider the effect that these advantages had in athletic performance. The research showed that men generally had a 30-60 percent advantage over women in strength, around a 33 percent advantage in terms of power and a 10-15 percent advantage in running speed. Even after taking testosterone suppressants (as per the IOC guidelines), the performance advantages remained significant, with only a fractional reduction in the males’ existing ability.
Why would this send any shockwaves through the sporting world? It’s not news!
Ross Tucker, the science and research consultant for World Rugby, acknowledged the “struggle” in considering the many aspects involved in the decision, saying that it was not possible to balance inclusion, safety and fairness.
It’s also not necessary or desirable. “Inclusion” of men on women’s teams should not be a goal in the first place. Think of adult men demanding “inclusion” on children’s teams. Nobody would think that has to be “balanced” along with safety and a fair shot at winning. Women are just supposed to suck it up I guess.
The only people who could possibly be surprised by this are the people who somehow convince themselves that men’s bodies are really women’s bodies if they say so. The bodies can’t be men’s bodies if they aren’t men, right? Magical thinking. Delusional.
I know, I know. I have just been lectured by someone “who understands biology” better than I do that when a man puts on woman face and lowers his testosterone his muscle mass and bone density both shrink, his heart and lung capacity declines, and he really really is a woman. :-(
Of course, taking a testosterone lowering drug must be to gain an advantage in competition and so should be banned as all other drugs are.
Amusingly (?) all those shocking conclusions were already in the Wikipedia article about sexual dimorphism in humans.
I have been ‘reliably’ informed in the past that there is no difference in the average sizes of the sexes, and if I seem to have noticed a trend, this can be discarded as anecdata because the apparent differences I have noticed is just a local sampling fluke.
Hairlessness is an aquatic mammalian characteristic, unexplainable by the conventional savannah thesis, but explainable by the Hardy-Morgan Aquatic Ape theory.. Sweating loses water, so non-aquatic savannah-dwelling mammals do not practice it. The streamlined female human form indicates that sexual dimorphism, most pronounced in humans, but pretty well absent in all other primates, could have resulted from females spending more time in the water than males (vide the diving women of Japan.)
Both sexes foraged on the sea coast of NE Africa. The females more off shore, the males more on shore, but no exclusivity for either.
Nasal passages ending in nostrils pointing towards the toes are an advantage underwater. Nasal passages pointing forwards are an advantage when moving fast on land. A human runner recovering from a run breathes mainly through the mouth as well as the nose, with mouth larger and wider than nostrils. A four legged small-mouthed grazing animal after exercise breathes almost exclusively through its nose.eg horse, bovine etc. A four-legged large mouthed carnivore with large teeth for grabbing & holding prey breathes through its mouth, losing excess heat through its tongue.
Homo sapiens is to my knowledge the most sexually dimorphic of all primate species. There has to be a reason for this.
Most ‘sexually dimorphic?’
Take a quick look at Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Orangutangs….I don’t think you can find another primate with less dimorphism than us.
As an avid swimmer, I’ve always been a fan of the aquatic ape theory. For me, swimming feels very much like something I ought to be doing (running, not so much). My longest swim was a 10K race. Sure, I couldn’t lift my arms over my head for a week, but I would happily do it again if I still lived there.
That said, the hair thing Omar started with doesn’t seem conclusive. Sure, truly aquatic mammals like dolphins and whales lack hair, but most semi-aquatic mammals are very hairy indeed. Just ask our resident trans otter. We are well-evolved for swimming, but nowhere near as much as furry animals such as otters, polar bears, seals, walruses, sea lions, beavers, jaguars… We’re the best-adapted for swimming among the apes, and also the baldest.
I believe that what evidence exists also shows that any aquatic human adaptations followed bipedalism.
That said, I don’t know if anything but specialized aquatic evolution could explain Lynne Cox.
I’ve always liked the Aquatic Ape theory, because I love to swim in the sea and some of my happiest childhood memories are of gathering shellfish at low tide, with warm water lapping round our ankles. Then eating the shellfish.
You all ought to look up what scientists think of the aquatic ape theory, and why.
The shockwaves going throughout the sporting world are not humming “transwomen are biologically male” or “men are stronger than women.” The tune they carry goes “we can say this and act accordingly.”
Glad to see at least one organisation doing the right thing, even if it is a case of stating the obvious. Not so very long ago a story of this nature would have been met with a collective no shit, Sherlock. There will now be the usual rebuttals of the science behind World Rugby’s findings from the new science discipline of butmuhfeelingsology and its religious wing, the Identifarians.
Papito, re
That isn’t strictly true. We have as many hairs per given area of skin as other primates, ours is just shorter and finer over most of our bodies.
iknklast #9, I’m aware of the current scientific consensus about the aquatic ape theory: it’s broadly considered not to pass muster as science. I still like it, though. I think maybe I like it better as mythology than as science.
Acolyte #11, you have schooled me there. I did not know that. Do old apes lose the follicles on the tops of their head too?
Okay,Papito, I’m fine with liking things as mythology. I have a lot of those things, too.
Omar
We ain’t.
Compare that to humans, with our approximately 15% difference in average body size. But even if we were the most dimorphic, why would that suggest aquatic evolution?
Papito, I have seen elderly male chimpanzees that have gone bald on top. These have been captive chimps, however, which tend to live longer than those in wild populations. It isn’t something I’ve noticed with other ape species, so its possible that a propensity for male baldness arose in the common ancestor of humans and chimps after the split with the line that led to gorillas.
And I can chime in with my experience of working around most of the ape species – all but chimps in fact. Gibbons and siamangs look all but identical (until the female nurses). Orangs very different; gorillas VERY different. (It’s orang utan by the way, not utang.)
If what makes it okay (or not) for the transwoman competitor (i.e., the male) to compete in women’s sport is physical ability, then surely the same reasoning applies to every other male. Any male whose physical ability is below a threshold must be allowed to compete in the women’s division—because fairness, right? No matter where you put that threshold, you’re pushing out some number of females who would otherwise had the opportunity to play/compete.
And that’s not fair.
Holms @#14:
Sexual dimorphism can go either way across the biosphere as a whole, as I think the above discussion bears out. But it appears to me that the relatively streamlined female figure exemplified by nude statues such as the Venus de Milo and countless other examples, fits an evolutionary story with females foraging more in water and males more on land. No big deal.
iknklast: @#9:
Charles Darwin opened a brand new paradigm in science, and reported that it was like “confessing to a murder.” Sir Allister Hardy, zoologist, who first proposed the Aquatic Ape theory, did so just after he had retired, fearing the storm that would break over his head.
I would argue that the dominant paradigm in any one area of science takes on some of the properties of a religion, complete with priesthood, sacred assumptions and vested interests. That ‘the scientists’ don’t think much of it is not surprising, despite the reality that the savannah theory is unable to explain a whole suite of human biological facts that the aquatic theory can; such as effectively hairless skin, sweating rather than panting for body cooling, but above all lack of night vision. That appears to have been traded off in exchange for excellent colour vision. If you can’t see in the dark, you will soon become a meal for a big cat, hyaena or other predator.
In species where there is strong competition amongst males for sexual access to females, sexual dimorphism gets pronounced. I assume that to be the case with gorillas and orangs. But the chimpanzees Jane Goodall studied as I recall she described as “completely promiscuous’, and presumably that helps preserve group harmony. Genetic competition and transmission have to deal with that somehow.
No no no, Goodall didn’t say chimps are “completely promiscuous” and they’re not. Dominance hierarchies play a huge role. You’re just making stuff up.
Maybe you’re confusing pair bonds v no pair bonds with monogamy v polygamy or something. Gibbons and siamangs form permanent pair bonds; the non-human great apes don’t.
#18 Omar
Earlier, you relied on humans being the most dimorphic ape as evidence for the aquatic ape theory. Now that you’ve been shown that that was very wrong, you have simply moved on to another argument in a manner reminiscent of a religious apologist.
But okay, the new argument: our sexual dimorphism has led to the female body being more streamlined. Have you ruled out plain old coincidence? This is something that needs to be accounted for in evolution. Consider the Sydney Funnelweb. It evolved on the Australian continent, and so never had a single primate in its ecology until human migration, yet its venom happens to be extremely potent against us. An evolutionary fluke.
Regarding the female ‘streamlining’, all you have there is that women have narrower shoulders than men, giving a vaguely more streamlined leading edge which curve into wider hips, while men have the broader leading edge and an indented waist*… but then again the female body has breasts, which are not streamlined at all. And men are still the better swimmers, not only from having the greater physical strength, but also thanks to larger lung capacity, larger blood volume, and hence larger O2 capacity. You’d think that the larger male frame would also burn through that O2 faster, yet all freediving records are held by men.
Colour sight. Are you aware that almost all old word primates have great colour vision, including those that are unambiguously savannah dwellers? Those various species seem to do fine, despite their bad night vision. Obviously, colour vision is not an impediment to land evolution.
Heat regulation. Have you noticed that aquatic / semi-aquatic mammals need adaptation to retain heat (fur, blubber), rather than lose it? This is because there is already an extremely easy way to lose body heat for any such species: take a dip. Overheating is not the dominant problem for such species; heat loss is.
Fear of persecution? The same could be said of Copernicus and many others, but here’s the thing with changing a scientific paradigm: bring evidence and you will win out. Eventually. Darwin was worried, but his meticulous study led him to be certain enough of his conclusion that he went with it… and became the most celebrated biologist by doing so.
Anyway, that will do for me on this topic.
*assuming he is not carrying a spare tire like the one I sport
For those interested, a discussion and debunking of the aquatic ape theory, with references:
http://www.aquaticape.org
possible place to start:
http://www.aquaticape.org/aatclaims.html
Karen the chemist
(long time reader, first time commenter)
Greetings!
Bugger. See how this goes:
Holms:
With respect, I did no such thing. I did not ‘rely’ on sexual dimorphism, more like I mentioned it in passing. The AAT does not, repeat not, stand or fall on that matter of dimorphism. It rests on a whole swag of human anatomical and physiological characteristics that are best explained by an aquatic phase in our evolution, and which the savannah theorists either cannot explain at all, or at best can only attempt to explain away.
What I originally said back at #5 was:
I realise now, as a result of others’ contributions to this thread that I should have confined that observation to chimpanzees, recognised when I last looked as our closest extant primate relative. My apologies. But it makes no difference with regard to AAT.
The AAT is above all a theory of the origins of bipedalism: a crucial development in human evolution, resulting in modern humans having longer legs than arms, which then puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to taking refuge from predators in trees, as the savannah-dwelling baboons do. Those bipedal humans at greatest peril would be nursing mothers, trying to guard newborns or toddlers against big cats on the open plains at night, while having traded off their night vision for excellent colour and distance vision.
Early English settlers in Australia in the 1840s, before the country was fenced, introduced foxes for a bit of jolly old hunting. Earlier pre-fox attempts at hunting kangaroos to hounds just came to disaster. A hunted kangaroo would simply head for the nearest water (they are strong swimmers), stand on the bottom, and as any given dog closed in, just hold its head under water until it either drowned or broke free and cleared out. They had presumably learned that trick in pre-dog contests with native thylacines and later with dingoes (Asian wild dogs) introduced by Aborigines at around 40,000 years BP, and possibly earlier.
If I had to face a big cat, I think I would have a far better chance standing in deep water up to my shoulders rather than on dry land. Particularly at night. Based on a rocky outcrop such as used by Hymadras (?) baboons. Better still, based on a rocky outcrop that was itself surrounded by water.
Our distant ancestors had a lot to cope with.
@Omar: Tigers are good swimmers. Not all cats have the antipathy to liquids exhibited by the average housecat. I will admit that I did enjoy the idea of AAT, when I first encountered it (back in the 1970s), but though it is a fun just-so story, I have not seen any evolutionary biologists take it seriously.
Theo,
The most fearsome tigers I have ever seen were Siberians, huge animals that would probably not say no to the average Bengal or Sumatran tiger on toast for breakfast. (They were in the old Peking Zoo.) Up against one of those with only a Paleolithic club or sharpened stick or stone hand-axe, I could be in a spot of bother. But our ancestors appear to have made the transition from four legs to two in Africa, and the part in which Leakey found his fossils is well supplied with the sort of coastline that I described. It’s kangaroo vs dogs: very different outcomes on land vs in water.
Is the Pope an atheist? Could be, though if he is, he keeps quiet about it, and says a lot of stuff to produce the standard press.
I think that says more about evolutionary biologists than it does about AAT. They have been trained by teachers of the old tradition and have learned not to think outside the square if they want to get on, though they may not have been told it in quite those terms. AAT was produced originally by a retired professor of zoology, then popularised by the writer Elaine Morgan, who trained herself as a scientist as she went. (Charles Darwin’s training was in theology. When I first learned about his theory as a kid growing up in Sydney, there was still popular skepticism of it, encouraged by theologians who saw themselves as having everything to lose.)
As well, a maverick theory in say, quantum physics can be quickly settled by an experiment or two using today’s matter. But human evolutionary biology has only a small experimental component. It is mainly islands of geological evidence in an ocean of speculation.
I agree with one part of that: they have been trained. They have the training, and thus the expertise in the matter. Do you?
As for the ‘scientists don’t dare question’ insinuation, I am curious whether you take that same attitude to other areas of science, where a tiny minority purport to disprove the generally accepted body of knowledge. Are climate scientists “trained by teachers of the old tradition [to] not think outside of the square if they want to get on”? Are climate sceptics bold truth-speakers with a maverick theory? How about Young Earth Creationists, Flat Earthers, covid deniers? The same just-so story could be said of those groups, but I bet you don’t.
BTW, did you overlook the parts where I dealt with your various other arguments? Streamlining, heat regulation etc.
OB:
Sorry to disillusion. That was a quote from a film she made about the Gombe Reserve chimps with Orson Welles.
See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3826206/
ALSO https://phys.org/news/2014-11-male-bullies-father-chimpanzees.html
ALSO https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/15/science/a-fresh-look-at-the-straying-ways-of-the-female-chimp.html
And please note, I do NOT ‘just make stuff up.’ (Aside: Jeeezis Kerrist!)
Holms @#20:
Colour sight. Are you aware that almost all old word primates have great colour vision, including those that are unambiguously savannah dwellers? Those various species seem to do fine, despite their bad night vision. Obviously, colour vision is not an impediment to land evolution.
Have they “bad night vision”?
Baboons, which are the other ground-dwelling primate are excellent tree climbers. But our high leg length/arm length ratio means that anywhere we can go, a big cat can go better.
But from this discussion so far, I would say that savannah theory is important to people. Why that should be so is intriguing. AAT raises hackles. (Dunno why it should be.)
Holms @#26: As for the ‘scientists don’t dare question’ insinuation, I am curious whether you take that same attitude to other areas of science, where a tiny minority purport to disprove the generally accepted body of knowledge. Are climate scientists “trained by teachers of the old tradition [to] not think outside of the square if they want to get on”? Are climate sceptics bold truth-speakers with a maverick theory? How about Young Earth Creationists, Flat Earthers, covid deniers? The same just-so story could be said of those groups, but I bet you don’t.
If climate scepticism explained the facts of our present natural reality better than mainstream science, then yes I would be a climate sceptic.
Likewise young earthers, provided they left God out of it (unprovable hypothesis).
Likewise flat earthers (bit of a hard thesis to maintain these days) but if it explained astronomical reality better than present the mainstream theory then I would have to support it. Not likely though, given the present data.
Covid denialism has taken a nosedive lately given the recent medical histories of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, but if it could be proven in properly run randomised and double-blind trials that it is nothing anyone should worry about, then yes, evidence would compel me to a conclusion in favour of that denialist position.
The list of human characteristics that AAT explains far better than savannah theory is in Elaine Morgan’s writings, particularly those mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Morgan
Omar @ 27 – from that NCBI article – titled “Female competition in chimpanzees” please note –
You said completely promiscuous, by which I took you to mean that all chimpanzees mate freely. They all compete to mate, but that’s very much not the same thing. As I said, dominance hierarchies play a huge role; they make complete promiscuity impossible.
PS Omar @ 27 –
What I said was “You’re just making stuff up” – which is kind of a stock phrase, maybe US-specific. It doesn’t mean lying (which your emphasis suggests you thought), it means more like…story-telling, bullshitting, getting creative, etc. It’s mildly insulting but not like an accusation of lying. And I do think that’s what you’re doing. I get that you’ve read up on it but it’s a crank theory and you’re expounding it as if it were demonstrably true.
As to sexual dimorphism in humans, sexual selection plays a role.
hair and hairlessness:
http://www.aquaticape.org/hair.html
Let’s not forget about water-based predators ;-)
What about predators?
http://www.aquaticape.org/predators.html
OB @#31:
I am up in the bush at the moment, and do not have my science books with me. But I have at least two of Elaine Morgan’s.
That I call ‘dismissal by label’. If you mean by ‘crank theory’ that it’s a minority view, then I would agree. I would also point out that the history of science knows the odd occasion when the minority (of one in the case of Lavoiusier) has been right. For a while there, in the period before he lost his head to the guillotine, Lavoisier was the only person on the planet who understood the rather important chemical process of combustion, at least in modern terms. Phlogiston theory, which explained things after a fashion, provided one did not look too hard at it, was the dominant paradigm, and Lavoisier was the ‘crank’. Could have been that Citizen Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety (nice ironic euphemism) were all ardent and orthodox phlogistonists. Must look into that.
With all due respect, and with al the humility I can muster, I modestly submit that I am doing no such bloody thing. There are lies, damn lies, statistics and various other kinds. You are accusing me of talking off the top of my head, making up stuff as I go along, bullshitting, etc, etc; all of which are accusations of irresponsibility, and of not giving a rat’s arse for the truth, which I suppose are polite accusations of sort of, kind of talking off the tp of my head, and not so much lying as being fast and loose with the truth.
Your objection was that I said chimps were completely promiscuous when in your view based on your experience they are only (insert adjective of choice here) promiscuous. The missing adj could be ‘very’, ‘highly’, ‘somewhat’ ,’occasionally’, ‘slightly’, ‘reluctantly’, ‘prudishly’, ‘modestly’…, as long as it ruled out ‘completely’.
I do not think that the distinction would make much difference in the context of a discussion of a human of either sex. To say of a man ‘he is completely promiscuous’ would not bring a response (at least, not in the circles I have moved in) of: ‘hang on there, don’t you just mean ‘highly, and within the confines of the dominance hierarchy he belongs to?’ Or some such. (Though come to think of it, I could work something like that into my next nightclub act.)
Nor do I think the distinction would mean much in the context of discussion of a woman’s behaviour, though in the context of the nightclub, it could start up some response from a feminist or two (hundred) in the crowd. But with chimps, it is apparently important. Six of one and half a dozen of the other to me.
There is a curious merging of history and science in the study of human origins. I studied for a while under the renowned Professor Manning Clark, of the Australian National University. He used to tell his students that his operating principle was the line from Horatio in Act 1 Scene 1 of Hamlet: “So have I heard, and do in part believe it.”
I do in part believe savannah theory, and do in part believe AAT. The portion sizes in each case I think you can guess.
BTW, The film I referred to at #27 was BTW, ‘Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees’. See https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/01/jane-goodall-book-excerpt-praise-difficult-women/
Omar – are you a scientist? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it. Yes, I know, sometimes today’s wack theory is tomorrow’s breakthrough – but most of the time it isn’t. See: the Galileo fallacy.
Please stop putting words in my mouth. I’m not accusing you of irresponsibility and of not giving a rat’s arse for the truth.
No, what I said about chimps was not based on my experience, it was based on what I’ve learned about the great apes, an interest which was prompted by working with other great apes – as I mentioned, chimps are the ones I didn’t get to work with.
As for the degree of “promiscuity” in chimps, I don’t even know what your point is now. It’s meaningless to call them “promiscuous” in the human censorious sense. My point is simply that they can’t all mate at will at all times because of estrus or its absence and because of hierarchy. My point is not that they sometimes feel guilty about it.
Having said all that, this is a massive derail. Most people apologize when they derail this drastically…or even dare I say promiscuously? Unless you have some genuine professional expertise you want to share with us, I’d like to get the train back on the tracks now.
OB: I am back where I can get on the Net, after some time away in the bush.
Back at #5, I had no idea that my comment would ‘derail’ a thread about the relative muscular strength of men vs women. But ‘derail’ the thread it did. As they came into the arena from near and far, I tried to deal with what each critic had to say individually. My sincere apologies.
I am retired now, and spend a lot of time in the bush, but I used to teach science for a living. Science is included in philosophy, a large component of which, as you know, is critical thinking. (I majored in philosophy in my first degree course.)
Omar – It’s quite all right. Hug it out, bro! (Small sample of US dialect.)