In a previous blog, I suggested that many human problems stem from the fact that, as animals, we are still in an early stage of our evolution. Fully evolved species are in harmony with their environments, and, unlike human animals, the members do not devote energy and resources to attacking and exterminating each other. Comparison with other mammalian species reveals a fundamental difference in the ratio of female to male humans. Perhaps our unceasing and destructive problem in relating to each other stems from the fact that there are roughly equal numbers of males and females, and there are far too many males!

Simplistically, female mammals have evolved to maintain their species by giving birth and rearing their young; males exist mostly to inseminate females and, in a few instances, protect females and their offspring. In many species, excess males are driven away to die in isolation. We confirm this natural ratio of females to males in agriculture and other animal ventures. In order to maintain an economically successful dairy farm, for example, the ratio of cows to bulls is somewhere around 100 to 1. In many enterprises, there is no local male and insemination of cows is carried out artificially. Male calves born on dairy farms are not reared but sent for slaughter early in their lives (‘bobby calves’).

Would human society be more stable and less destructive with fewer males? Perhaps the function of wars is to reduce male populations and recreate the balance? Nature works in mysterious ways