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  3. Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks

Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks

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问题     Most males in the animal kingdom do little parenting. Sometimes, though, parental investment by a male pays off. Songbird chicks are usually tended by both mother and father. Wolf packs see alpha males and females collaborate to raise the cubs. And in human beings, too, the children’s father hangs around to lend a hand in bringing up the kids. Sometimes.
    Understanding why some men settle down to form families with the mothers of their children, and others don’t, is normally seen as the prerogative of social science. But biology has a role, too. And the latest work by Lee Gettler of the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana, clarifies how part of that biological mechanism operates.
    Previous studies suggest that high levels of testosterone, the principal male hormone, are bad for family life. Fathers with lower testosterone levels provide more child care and are better partners to the children’s mothers. Conversely, high-testosterone males are less likely to stick around.
    Dr Gettler has shown something further. This is that a man’s adult testosterone level seems correlated with whether his father was present during his teenage years. His data come from a survey begun in Cebu City, in the Philippines, in 1983. This monitored the health and nutrition of 966 men enrolled as babies. It also collected extensive information on whether the fathers of these men were around and providing parental care in the households in which they were brought up. It further documented whether participants got married, had children and, if they did, whether they participated in child care. Crucially, it also measured their testosterone levels at the ages of 21, 26 and 30.
    Overall, Dr Gettler and his colleagues found that on becoming fathers, men had lower testosterone levels if their own fathers had lived with them and been involved in their care during their teenage years. Specifically, if that had happened, testosterone levels in their saliva were 16％ below those of men whose fathers had not stuck around to help raise them.
    This difference has two possible explanations. One is that it is directly genetic, with high-testosterone fathers (those least likely to stick around) begetting high-testosterone sons. In this case the correlation with paternal absence would be a coincidence. The other is that teenage experience actually modulates testosterone levels. This explanation, which Dr Gettler favours, could lead to a vicious circle of high-testosterone men abandoning their sons, who thus become high-testosterone in their turn.
    Testosterone levels are not completely deterministic in the matter of parental care. Some of those in the survey whose fathers were absent during their adolescence, and who ended up with high levels of the hormone, did nevertheless became nurturing parents.
Songbird chicks and wolf packs are mentioned to________.
选项 A、give examples that some males do parenting
B、prove the rarity of male involvement in parenting
C、compare the parenthood of animals and humans
D、highlight the responsibility of a father in a family
答案A
解析 例证题。根据题干中的songbird chicks和wolfpacks可定位至第一段。两个例子来自第三句和第四句，这两句分别介绍了在动物界两种不同的物种当中，父母共同照顾子女，会对其后代的能力产生有利的影响。例子所要论证的论点往往都在上下文。第一句指出，动物王国中的大多数雄性都很少养育子女。很明显，第三、第四句就是在举例说明哪些雄性动物会照顾孩子，故A项正确。B项和D项属于主观臆断，这两个例子没有强调父亲角色在育儿过程中的缺失，也不是强调父亲在家庭中的职责，故排除这两项。C项属于无中生有，第五句只是引出了人类社会里父亲的角色，并没有针对动物界和人类的育儿方式进行对比，故排除。故本题答案为A项。
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