2. 考研
  3. When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have sha

When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have sha

admin2018-07-10  6
问题     When two drunken men fight over a woman, alcohol and stupidity may not be the only things at work. Sadly, evolution may have shaped men to behave this way. Almost all of the traits considered to be masculine—big muscles, facial hair, square jaws, deep voices and a propensity to violence—evolved, it now seems, specifically for their usefulness in fighting off or intimidating other men, allowing the winner to get the girl.
    That, at least, is the contention of David Puts, an anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University, in an upcoming paper in Evolution and Human Behavior. Dr Puts is looking at how sexual selection gave rise to certain human traits. A trait is sexually selected if it evolved specifically to enhance mating success. They come in two main forms: weapons, such as an elk’s horns, which are used to fight off competitors; and ornaments, like a peacock’s tail, which are used to advertise genetic fitness to attract the opposite sex.
    Researchers have tended to consider human sexual selection through the lens of the female’s choice of her mate. But human males look a lot more like animals designed to battle with one another for access to females, says Dr Puts. On average, men have 40% more fat-free mass than women, which is similar to the difference in gorillas, a species in which males unquestionably compete with other males for exclusive sexual access to females. In species whose males do not fight for access to females, males are generally the same size as, or smaller than, females.
    The heavier brow and jaw of males might have developed to withstand blows from other males. Heavy eyebrows, facial hair and deep voices all could serve to make a man more imposing to other men. Dr Puts does not dismiss mate selection outright. Women are attracted to some of the same traits that are good for dominating other men because they signal that the man will sire sons who will also be successful at mating. But female choice probably is not the primary cause of the traits.
    It is a disturbing idea to modern minds, harking back to old stereotypes about violent cavemen battling with clubs while a passive woman, fetching in furs, waits helplessly to see who will win her. But Dr Puts emphasizes that evolutionary biology is not destiny. Regardless of our evolutionary past, in modern societies men and women freely choose their mates. However, understanding the evolutionary pressures that made men the way they are could help us better understand male violence, including murder, domestic abuse, gang violence and perhaps even warfare.
The similarity between human beings and gorillas is that _____.
选项 A、females have the same rate of fat-free mass
B、males have more fat-free mass than females
C、the population of males is smaller than females
D、the size of females is generally larger than males
答案B
解析 根据题干中的gorillas可定位到第三段。该段③句将人类与大猩猩作比较，其中提到有一个类似点，即雄性的非脂肪体积比雌性多约40％，定语从句which is similar to…中which所指代的内容即为本题答案，B项只是将原文的men及women替换成了males及females，所述与原文一致，故确定B项正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/wy6Z777K
0

考研英语一

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)