Dig it: Daniel Kruger, a researcher at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, has found that there's an evolutionary basis for the discrepancy between the sexes' skill at shopping. Explains ScienceDaily,

From an evolutionary perspective, it all harkens back to the skills that women used for gathering plant foods and the skills that men used for hunting meat. The contrast emerges because of the different foraging strategies for hunting and gathering used throughout human evolution.

Hunting versus gathering, if you will. And, as he puts it, "Evolved foraging psychology underlies sex differences in shopping experiences and behaviors." Women are good at taking the time to find the right stuff; men, not. Your stereotypical woman lives to shop; her husband holds down the "husband chair" and leafs through Teen Vogue.

Interesting as this is, it poses a major dilemma for Payless Shoes: for the past few years, they've advertised their BOGO sale with nature-documentary style narration about women "hunting" for shoes and deals. What will they ever do now?

Male And Female Shopping Strategies Show Evolution At Work In The Mall [ScienceDaily]

According to John Mehaffey of Reuters, McCallister's evidence includes a set of footprints made by Australian aborigines chasing game 20,000 years ago. Analysis of the footprints shows the men were running at about 37 kph (23 mph) along the muddy shore of a lake. For comparison, world record holder Usain Bolt reached a speed of 42 kph (26 mph) at the Beijing Olympics. McAllister writes,

We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal. But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.

Our ancestors were apparently also better at beatdowns. Neanderthal women, says McAllister, had 10% more muscle mass than modern European men, and a Neanderthal woman could have beaten Arnold Schwarzenegger at arm wrestling (though her shorter forearm length sort of sounds like cheating). At this point I'm imagining a pretty funny Conan the Barbarian sequel involving time travel, but there's more: modern men also suck at jumping, even compared to men of the last century. McAllister deduced this from photos taken by a German anthropologist, showing men jumping up to 2.52 m (8.3 feet). He writes,

It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood. It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves.

The Era of the Human Pogo Stick sounds like a pretty silly time to be alive, but McAllister laments how far men have fallen. He says,

We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that. We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from.

And, more bluntly, in the prologue to his book:

If you're reading this then you — or the male you have bought it for — are the worst man in history.

Of course, not being able to arm-wrestle a Neanderthal woman doesn't make you "the worst man in history," nor does jumping prowess determine masculinity. Manthropology is clearly intended to be kind of funny, but it does seem to promote some pretty lame gender stereotypes. I do wonder if manthropologist McAllister has anything to say about women — like, say, what they were doing while men were spending all their time jumping.

Modern Man A Wimp Says Anthropologist [Reuters]

While, as Angier puts it, "observers of human mating customs have long contended that serial monogamy is really just a socially sanctioned version of harem-building," in fact, she suggests, perhaps women are, by nature, also inclined to live polygymously.

In a report published in the summer issue of the journal Human Nature, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder of the University of California, Davis, presents compelling evidence that at least in some non-Western cultures where conditions are harsh and mothers must fight to keep their children alive, serial monogamy is by no means a man's game, finessed by him and foisted on her. To the contrary, Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said, among the Pimbwe people of Tanzania, whose lives and loves she has been following for about 15 years, serial monogamy looks less like polygyny than like a strategic beast that some evolutionary psychologists dismiss as quasi-fantastical: polyandry, one woman making the most of multiple mates... "We're so wedded to the model that men will benefit from multiple marriages and women won't, that women are victims of the game," Dr. Borgerhoff Mulder said. "But what my data suggest is that Pimbwe women are strategically choosing men, abandoning men and remarrying men as their economic situation goes up and down."

In addition, the researcher found, these multiple-marriers are not deemed the flighty "bolters" of Western perception, but, rather, "considered high-quality mates, the hardest working, the most reliable, with scant taste for the strong maize beer the Pimbwe famously brew." While this is obviously a specific study of a certain group's practices, as Salon's Judy Berman puts it, these are "Darwinian extremes," and as such it's tempting to extrapolate about a society not mired in our constructs. I'm wary of this, as a rule; because a society doesn't have our mores doesn't mean it can't have its own, surely equally entrenched and capable of altering a society's shape? To suggest anything else seems both reductive and patronizing. But let's say we take the argument to this far-fetched extreme and start the perennially-popular par;or game of "what-if." What if this says something about basic human nature? What do we learn? That women are security-minded? Angier's circumspect, saying only, "the results underscore the importance of avoiding the breezy generalities of what might be called Evolution Lite, an enterprise too often devoted to proclaiming universal truths about deep human nature based on how college students respond to their professors' questionnaires." I'm inclined to concur: if we choose to regard this as some kind of triumph for evolutionary equality, the results lead themselves equally open to far-flung "gold-digger" interpretations. The best conclusion to draw, to my mind, is what I'll call the creationist's paradox: you can use loosely-interpreted evolutionary arguments to back up as many arguments as a Bible-thumper can find Good Book justification for his.

If we need proof, keep in mind that the "husband-snatcher!" furor is still going strong. A rather cavalier piece in the Houston Chronicle sports the same sort of reductive headline that's been snaring views since the rather more complicated Journal of Experimental Social Psychology results came out. In short, she reports that "mate poaching" is real, and that it says a lot of bad stuff about women. Then readers, who also haven't read the research and are drawing their own conclusions based on this rather sketchy pop-summary, say things like, "fellas if your wife has hot looking girlfriends, leave the house, cause those b—-h's are cheating to. ladies, if your husband has hot looking friends, chances are they are cheating with your hot looking girlfriends." And "THE ALPHA MALE, just like the lion of the jungle his role is to get as many lioness's pregnant." Does a moron need "facts" to bolster his grandstanding? No - but he'll use them.

"Facts" as we know can be dangerous things. It's not, obviously, an exactly analogous situation, but I thought of this earlier while reading a piece about Marriage Works USA, a campaign of the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative that promotes marriage by using statistics on its ads like "married people earn and save more money" and "married people enjoy better health." As Christopher Wanjek sagely points out on LiveScience, these stats derive, universally, from studies and surveys whose results are, unsurprisingly, far more complicated and less neatly reductive than the campaign would suggest, and as such, misleading. I'm not saying people who want to shouldn't get married (and be able to) but the decision shouldn't be dictated by pop sociology, and if that marriage ends, let's not invoke evolutionary imperatives, either. Sure, facts and studies are great. But a fact, noun, doesn't in itself bolster an argument, also noun. These various studies are fascinating, enrich the discussion and, when used as intended, can teach us a lot. But we've eschewed plenty of "evolutionary imperatives" to live as we do, and as a result have pretty much forfeited the privilege of using it as an excuse. Apologies to THE ALPHA MALE.

Skipping Spouse To Spouse Isn't Just A Man's Game [NY Times]
The First Husbands Club [Salon]
Are You Or Do You Know A "Mate Poacher"? [Houston Chronicle]
Marriage Works: An Exaggerated Message [LiveScience]

Since Napoleon Chagnon's landmark 1988 study of the Yanomamo tribe of Venezuela, it's been assumed that aggressive and violent behavior was the key to power, and that men who demonstrated such behaviors ended up the top dogs, with more wives and children. Or, as several headlines insist on cheesily, patronizingly, and oddly putting it, they "get the girl." But a new study of the similarly warlike Waorani of the Amazon basin has strikingly different results. In essence, "Warriors Do Not Always Get The Girl."

The Waorani are rainforest manioc horticulturalists and foragers. Their position in the Amazon is an enviable one that attracts a lot of others, and the Waorani are said to be notorious for killing outsiders vying for resources, with murder also fairly commonplace within the tribe. This appalled the missionaries who encountered the indigenous people in 1959 and quickly set about trying to eradicate the violence of the Waorani's traditional culture, but today it's still the South American tribe with the highest recorded murder rate (in the past five generations 42 percent of deaths of both men and women resulted from murder) and as such an irresistible subject to those anthropologists interested in studying aggression in society. Contrary to old suppositions, says Penn State's Stephen Beckerman, who interviewed people in 23 settlements, the most violent and aggressive members of the tribe have fewer wives and children than Beta males. Oddly, the children of more violent men were found to have shorter life spans.

The reasons for the difference aren't clear - the researchers cite "cultural differences" and "cycles of aggression." But, um, what about the fact that the resources that were the basis of their existence - and the cause of most violence - have been destroyed? After all, their homeland is highly at risk of oil exploration and illegal logging. And isn't some of this just a natural consequence of the eradication of an ancient culture? While portions of the community have held steadfastly to old ways, retreating from society, it's also true that a large number now live as Christians. If the shift means the saving of lives, one can't help but feel ambivalent, but surely anthropology as we and Barbara Pym knew it can't really be studied in a vacuum? But as a green shoot of human nature hope in a violent world? Sure, we'll take what we can get.

Turns Out Tough Guys Get The Girls [NBC]
Warriors Do Not Always Get The Girl [Science Daily]

It should be noted that Mr. Greengross conducted his study in Britain, which is Hugh Grant country. Greengross says: "Self-deprecating humour can be an especially reliable indicator not only of general intelligence and verbal creativity, but also of moral virtues such as humility." In other words, it's important to be smart, quick and funny when you put yourself down, because chicks dig witty, humble dudes. Another anthropologist, Kate Fox, sums it up thusly:

"Pomposity and self-importance are outlawed. Serious matters can be spoken of seriously, but one must never take oneself too seriously… As long as everyone understands the rules, they are duly impressed both by one's achievements and by one's reluctance to trumpet them."

What neither Greengross nor Fox discuss is the why. Why are we attracted to successful, smart people as long as they don't claim to be successful or smart? It's not about tearing yourself down  someone with zero confidence isn't very attractive  but humans also seem to be wary of the other end of the spectrum; shouting how awesome you are from the rooftops is a dealbreaker. So do we just like moderation? And what's the evolutionary advantage in that? Biologists would have us believe that the brightest peacock gets the hen, just like the most powerful ram and the loudest rooster, or whatever. And when "mating," looking for a mate with power makes sense, even if we have evolved beyond that and share power these days. But seriously: I love it as much as the next girl, but what good is self-deprecating humor in the urban jungle? Maybe I'm slow, but I just don't get it.

Laughter: The Secret Of Love [Guardian]
Ellie Levenson: British Men And The Art Of Seduction [Independent]
The MOST Effective Way To Get A Woman Into Bed Is By Running Yourself Down, Say Scientists [Daily Mail]

Personally, I was weird, and shy, and ADD, and got good grades. I was the type of kid whose sixth birthday wish was that there would be no gravity. I was a fucking leper until...I got my braces out? Something like that. I've blacked it out, obviously.

It's a weird thing, being that kid who would do anything, anything, to trade places with anyone just one measly rank higher on the social totem pole, or the inconspicuousness pole. Time passes so slowly when you're a kid it's hard to fathom life after childhood; you're so much closer to innocence, to that kinder, more just womb of unconditional parental love that it's almost easier to conceive of the Afterlife than any Life After at that age, and so you cope and hold out and grow up and assume you were bullied so you would understand, so you would have empathy for others, so you would grow into the lovable misanthrope you turned out to be, so you would discover Dinosaur Jr., whatever.

Somewhere you forget kids are still getting bullied, that you boiled over with a rage you didn't know you still had when you saw that girl who mocked you every day in religion class  fucking religion class!?  at the reunion, and she's got a baby now, maybe they'll be bullies too; you should have gone and told her off but for the fact that she was posing for MySpace photos, admirably maintained backside turned toward the camera, with all those people she still hangs out with...and anyway you learned long ago to turn the other cheek as a life philosophy, not a weakness. That from alienation could come...if not exactly triumph, a pretty easy "A" on the big Kafka paper sophomore year. Etc. etc. etc. Etc. etc. etc. it's not about you, really. Have you learned nothing from the bullying? You still haven't answered any questions for your people.

Why do kids bully? And what of those precious kids who, for whatever reason, don't participate in the bullying? Who befriend the meek and the bullied from a place of social dominance? What are those kids smoking? Because the world needs more of that.

A Boy The Bullies Love To Beat Up, Repeatedly [NY Times]