Non dual peace

 A

Theoretical problems aside, various lines of evidence militate against

the pure-promiscuity hypothesis. The most important concerns a peculiar

phenomenon known as sperm competition.

116 In promiscuous species,

females often mate with more than one male within the space of a single

reproductive cycle. For animals with internal fertilization, this means that

females often end up with several males’ sperm in their reproductive tract at

the same time. In that context, any male that produces more sperm than the

rest has a better chance of impregnating the female. This works on a simple

principle, namely that the more lottery tickets you buy, the better your

chances of winning. Males that produce more sperm have more offspring,

and therefore males evolve over the generations to mass produce sperm. As

any business magnate will tell you, if you want to mass produce something,

you need a large “factory.” Thus, males in promiscuous species tend to have

large testicles relative to the size of their bodies. Male chimps, for instance,

have testicles nearly as large as their brains. Males in monogamous species,

on the other hand, don’t need to mass produce sperm, because females in

these species only rarely mate with more than one male within a single

reproductive cycle. Thus, monogamous males have much more modestly

proportioned testicles. The same holds for males in polygynous species –

gorillas, for example.

A