Let The Games Begin!

Selfish genes, testosterone, and tournament species

Silverback gorillas are dictators of their troops. Rodrigo.Argenton via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Pop quiz.

1. What percentage of countries are run by dictators?
2. How many of those dictators are male?

Answers: 1) 29% (57 of 193 countries). 2) All.

Given the tragic suffering broadly inflicted by violent aggressors like political dictators, what’s the motivation?

It would be simplistic to ascribe a single cause to any human behavior, but we can look into contributing factors. Let’s start with genes.

Mom genes and Dad genes

Remember Mendel diagrams in high school Biology? Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, illustrated how heritability works.

Madprime via Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic

B is a dominant gene; b is recessive. Only the combination bb yields a white flower. The presence of B always yields purple.

Notice that the gender of the contributing parent doesn’t matter. In other words, while the diagram depicts pollen and pistil, gender isn’t a factor in the genetic outcome. Most of us were taught that gender isn’t relevant in heritability.