Heard a small clip on the radio, mentionning that many studies were done on what is called the Third Sex (effiminate men and most important manly babes).
This thread will naturally be biased towards Manly Babes, obviously. The fast-car driving, manual work able, feisty, high pain tolerant, HIGH-T babes.
Apparently, psychologists and the media put these women in the Androgyny / Girl-Power / Third Sex categories. (For men it is called the New Man). Resembles in many points the definition of the T-Vixen.
By definition, this will always be a smaller subset of whatever population being studied.
Which brings up interesting questions:
Are we high-T guys searching for exceptions (Holy Grail) in the population? (Based on the hoot of the Madonna/Christina/Britney kiss, many prefer babes who play on both boards, which would be compatible with 3rd sex definitions…)
(Possible explanation: we have high-T, the babe has high-T, therefore children have even better chances of having the high-T profile. From a selfish gene`s point of view, it makes sense. Specially when we are T-biased as we are ehehehe. )
Is there any link between the New Man zone and the Metrosexuals?
You know the power of the gay community on all of society, specially trends and fashion. Is the emergence of Girl Power Idols just another way of helping the emergence of the new Third Sex as mainstream (or unattainable goal, you are either born with it or not, and your offspring may or may not have it in the genetic lottery sense)?
Does someone have any good links on this concept. So far Google gives out more punk band references than the rest.
It’s an interesting concept about two high t parents having high t kids, but that reasoning doesn’t seem to hold water.
The problem is something called regression to the mean. In plain english it means, if you mate two super smart people, or two superb athletes, what you end up with(this has been studied by anthropologists) is a person of average intelligence or average athletic ability.
Regression to the mean…over a couple of generations, I could understand…but the first one (the select children) should be advantaged nevertheless…unless they are the unlucky ‘recessive gene that gets out once in a while’ product…
But regress to the mean at the first generation? I guess not. At worts, average between superior and mean, but definitely not mean at gen 1.
regression to the mean does not happen immediately. It may take many generations. It all depends on the genes involved too. Say the gene for high T levels is on the X chromosome. Males have one X, and females have 2 X’s. Now say that the gene is heterozygous in the female, meaning that she has a dominant T-levels gene, and a normal T-levels gene. The male obviously has to have the dominant gene on his one X. So if they mate, the offspring could get the normal T-level gene only (boy) or high T-level/normal T (girl). Make sense.
This was just an example. I don’t know what gene or genes control T-levels and if they are X or Y. It is most likely X and Y because both males and females have T. The females have this extraordinaroy ability to shut off one of their X chromosomes in order to not produce excess of what is necessary to function, such as T, whereas males produce it year round, 24/7.
You guys, we’ve already seen a prime example of this philosophy back with hitler and his olympic teams in the 30’s.
Obviously there is a lot more going into it than just having “good genes”. And 2 parents with good genes don’t always make a kid with good genes, same with parents with bad genes.
I would guess it all depends on how common the occurrence of “special” kids is, but most of them are just the freaks of nature types, the ones who randomly are special.
I will admit there is some connection between good genes and potential, but realization of potential is a combo of genes/attitude/environment.
I’ve read somewhere that more masculine men tend to be attracted to more masculine women, and vice versa. A true T-Man is certainly less likely to be intimidated by a chick who’s tough, athletic, competent, and/or assertive. I’ve personally found that when I’m doing well athletically, achieving highly in other areas, and feeling good about myself, I seem more drawn toward T-Vixens, and when I’m in a slump and feeling down on myself I’m more likely to have a craving for feminine, helpless, or airheaded women.
The Madonna kiss, or chicks making out on “Girls Gone Wild” or something, has nothing to do with high T. It’s more like trying to get attention from guys.
Hitler’s teams…so what did it do? Was there a difference that could be registered in results? Was it the result of something planned 20 years before (so the said olympians were a true result of parent selection)?
Freaks. Have you any percentages on that? Is it constant to specific regions or is it global (same percetage everywhere, through time) ?
Degrees. Probabilities. Yep, some parentage has no links to the children’s traits. Can you get figures to back it up? It’s all a question of degrees, samples and populations.
Attitude? Maybe attitude can help you tap what you have, but in what sense does that help you getting your genes down in history, except maybe ‘bagging the babe’ (where an attitude that sucks would have left you with a less than top female partner)?
Talking phenotypes is cool. We just need more math and numbers to back it up. Otherwise it comes all subjective and everybody is right in his own little sample…
In another thread some time back someone made a really great point about the children of professional athletes having the advantage of the best available coaching – in addition to whatever genetic advantage they may enjoy. Obviously that’s an important factor in environment. The children of, say, doctors, could have the same type of advantage if their parents have the financial ability to send them to better schools with better teachers – and pay for tutoring, as needed.
It’s anecedotal, but I can’t think of an example of successive generations in professional sports of the same high caliber level of success. It seems that the son surpasses the father by a great deal or he’s no better than an average, journeyman performer while his dad was a star.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the Agassi/Graf kids.
Something must pass in genes, look at the Williams sisters and the twins that play pro football.
On another note, I have one ‘beef’ with this statement: “The fast-car driving, manual work able, feisty, high pain tolerant, HIGH-T babes.”
High T has nothing to do with a woman’s pain tolerance. Women have pain thresholds FAR above men weither they are high T or not.
However, it has been studied that males are more adept at spacial realtions and visualization so perhaps that is a T related trait. Women are better at multi-tasking, so that may be a low T or high E related trait.
Sorry to disagree SeanC, but if this were a hard-and-fast rule, we would not have different species of dogs. They would have all regressed to the mean for their traits, whatever their breeders might have been trying to achieve. We have the myriad of species because of selective breeding for specific traits.
“Regression to the mean,” as it were, can happen obviously. Especially if you haven’t actually matched up “genetic” traits or if for some reason they’re recessive or the gene isn’t activated, or if there are other environmental influences that play a factor (ex: gene for height, and then malnutrition). Or, as is the case with intelligence, when you have a characteristic that you aren’t sure whether it’s genetic, environmental, or some weighted average, it is awfully hard to breed for the specific cause.
But should they identify the genetic component for intelligence, and how to ensure it is expressed, and then exposed those “high potential” offspring to the proper environmental stimuli, you could surely breed for intelligence. One thinks it might be easier for something like T-levels (although there are still all of those environmental factors).
MICHELLE: Maybe I was not explicit enough, but a ‘subset of women’ with that statement was meant from the start.
Yes, maybe, there are low pain tolerance within high-T women, but my idea was clearly not women VS men but a subclass of women within women. Somehow, I have difficulty imagining a high-T woman having potpourri-like mentality when it comes to pain tolerance. Much like a Wuss Marine. It can be, though, with enough stoicism. But it goes against the idea, generally.
Now we all know that men are different than women on some bases, but this thread is targeted to the high-T women profile.
seanc - I’m a PhD student, and already graduated with a degree in Biology and minor in Molecular Biology. I’ve had to do lots of this stuff through numerous classes before. NOTHING is ever this simple. There are waaaaay too many variables to deal with, i.e. other genes involved, other hormones, deleterious mutations, non-lethal mutations, chromosomal breakages, etc. Sometimes, these things can be very difficult to explain to a non-science person, as they don’t have the background to understand the details. It’s not a knock, it’s just true. My fiancee is a business person, and I don’t understand jack shit of what she does, because I don’t have the background.
Also, nurture plays a huge role. Take an average athlete, give him good coaches and a solid work ethic, he’s gonna be good. Take an extraordinary athlete, give him crappy coaches and no desire, he’s not going far. Put a low T guy and make him a pornstar, he’ll get high T quickly. Over time, he may have permanent high T levels.
Of course it’s never that simple, I never claimed that it was. I agree with everything you said. My only point was, that regression is observed in the parent offspring pair and is/has been observed. And yes, I obviously was very brief in my posts and they weren’t all that well put together.
Sorry if I sound stupid, I guess my engineering degree from a top 10 engineering school should be tossed out, ay?
Naw man, not saying that your degree should be tossed out at all. It’s just hard to explain detailed science to non-science people sometimes. Like when I give presentations, I have to have like 10 minutes of background, and only 5 minutes of experimental data because there’s that much complication to it. It can really be a pain in the ass, as my family and fiancee have virtually no clue what I do.
When I learned this in embryology it took me by surprise: after the sperm and egg meet, the resulting zygote is either XY or XX, depending on which chromosome the sperm carries. Ok, so you are genetically a male or female from the time of fertilization.
On the Y chromosome, there is a region of genes known as the sex-determining region (SRY), which codes for the testis-determining factor (TDF). The TDF acts as a switch to turn on other genes responsible for sexual organ development. If there is TDF present, male development occurs. Without it, you are a female. So if there is a lack of TDF, or defective TDF, an XY genotypic male can grow up as a phenotypic female.
So you see, the “default” setting in humans is female. It takes a very special chain of events to become a male, and not even everyone who is lucky enough to get a Y chromosome from their father will get to be a T man.
I think a good trait to observe “regresssion to the mean” in is height. It’s alot easier to measure than intelligence or athletic ability. It’s also not as affected by nurture (though nutrition is obviously a big factor).
The best example I’ve seen of regression to the mean in height is a family I know - the dad is 6’-5", the mom is 5’9" (both quite tall for their gender and generation). Their sons are: 6’8, 6’10, 6’1, 6’1 (plus a 12 yr old that hasn’t attained full height). Their daughter is 6’2.
In that family 2 out of 5 of the offspring are not significantly tall for their gender.
So regression can definitely happen in the first generation, but inheritance is complicated - and the two 6’1 boys might very well pass on their family’s “tall genes” and have sons that are 6’8+.