Human females are not always faithful

I read an interesting article in Nature (a very prestigious scholarly publication) a few days ago. A study has demonstrated that in species where females are promiscuous, males tend to ejaculate more than necessary in order to compete inside the female genital tract with other males. Simply put, if a female has multiple companions, the one that produces most sperm is also the most likely to impregnate her. At this point, if you are skeptical about the theory of natural selection and evolution you'll propably underestimate the basis of this finding so maybe you should skip this article in its entirety. I'll address the "Creationism vs Evolution" debate in another article.

This report also verifies the observation that in species where females are absolutely loyal (e.g. gorillas, where females only mate with the leader of the group) males usually have the smallest testicles that get the job done. On the other hand, in species where competition inside the female genital tract is possible (i.e. females do have multiple partners in periods of reproductive oestrus) males usually posses much larger testicles. Now, using a reverse approach, human males have testicles intermediate in size between those two groups which leads us to the hypothesis that traditionally there is some competition inside the human female genital tract. Plainly stated, this means that there is a sound scientific basis to support the idea that women are not always loyal to their companions. I'm sure that you are amazed by this astute observation that any human above the age of 18 could empirically verify.

Note that this is not a chauvinist comment against civilized, educated modern women or a scientific approval of unethical extramarital behaviour. However, being scientifically objective we cannot dismiss the fact that women (and men) are not always faithful in their relationships and it shows (in an evolutionary context).

Maybe it appears that research like this is trivial or boring, but I think that it serves a very useful purpose: using the scientific method to evaluate conventional wisdom may lead to surprising results or it might lend scientific credibility to word-of-mouth or other widely accepted notions. The value of the scientific method in this case lies in its ability to render conventional wisdom (which everyone "knows") functional in a scientific environment where everything is doubted. After all, using a scientific approach in everyday or atypical questions can be fun...

My ramblings were inspired by the aforementioned article. Please refer to the original if you have any doubts or wish to satisfy your curiosity. All errors and inaccurate conclusions in the present text are my fault and should not be attributed to the authors of the original article. This is light-hearted piece, meant to be read for fun.

PKT