Are human males biologically programmed to impregnate as many females as possible?

Question

Are human males biologically programmed to impregnate as many females as possible?

Answer 1

Yes. Simple as that

Answer 2

It’s very easy to over simplify this question. If you look closely there is evidence supporting several different breeding strategies amongst humans...both male and female. Any one sentence answer can only really cover a single part of the evidence.

It is commonly said that humans invest time and energy into a bonding pair. Rearing offspring in a bonded pair relationship is often successful as you have two parents dedicating energy to the task. However it’s a risky strategy on other fronts, if one of the pair turns out to be infertile then the reproduction of both is destroyed. Certainly there is a lot of evidence to support this strategy in humans, to an extent that some people believe it is the only method natural to humans.

There is however evidence to support different strategies, amongst both males and females. Indeed it is now known that many species that use pair bonding as their ‘primary’ strategy  also have offspring outside the pair bond. Obviously here they are losing the advantage of the pair bonding to bring up offspring, but a greater number of potential offspring mitigates this.

A similar strategy is to still form a pair bond, but rather than for life, to just form it for the raising of the offspring. Again there is some evidence for this in humans. Pair bonding breakdown after a number of years is quite common. This strategy still gives the advantage of pair bonding for offspring rearing, but offers the advantage of having a variety of partners and therefore a variety of gene’s to pair with. Again there is evidence of this in humans. In fact the couple next door between them have 5 children in 4 different pairings (2 each), making them an excellent example of this strategy.

Taking a look from a different angle. Amongst species that co-exist in groups, a common strategy is for there to be a main ‘alpha’ male, who will do most, if not all of the reproduction in the group. In species that follow this strategy, the male tends to be larger than the female. In species that follow pair bonding, males are commonly the same size as females. Humans don’t really fall into either camp. Males are generally slightly larger than females, but not significantly. Maybe in our past, we had the alpha breeding male...or maybe that’s the way we’re heading in the future, the evidence isn’t conclusive either way.

That’s just scratching the surface. There’s an awful lot more evidence covering these and other breeding strategies...and that's just taking a 'scientific' viewpoint, as seen from some of the other answeres there are other viewpoints that could be taken.

Answer 3

yeah.. that's kind of the point..

it's not so much the impregnation as it is the reproduction.. if you have intercourse with 1000 women and only 500 get pregnant and only 200 come to term..

that's not as good has having intercourse with 500 women and having 400 come to term...

Answer 4

The basic biology of s*x is for the male to spread "his" genes into the species-as many as possible. The act of "breeding" drives that train. The Human animal has injected "love" into the equation-gets messy after that!

Answer 5

No, humans can control their offspring.

Answer 6

reproduction is part of all humans biology

Answer 7

That's my excuse Your Honour.  

Answer 8

I don't know about impregnate.....

Answer 9

Probably but if u try that then ur gonna get into trouble

And if u use this as an excuse for cheating then its not gonna work

Jus drop it lmao

Answer 10

Oh yeah, just make sure you can pay child support. Stupid government ruining my life.

Answer 11

Finally. someone understands.

Answer 12

It's certainly possible.

It's also possible that human females are biologically programmed to sleep with as many men as they can, so only the strongest sperm impregnates them.

This is all a bit cynical however; the fact is, as far as we can see monogamy is the norm for the human species, whether for biological or sociological reasons. It's certainly my preference, anyway.

Answer 13

On a genetic basis, yes.  The male genes are the ones responsible for accelerating fetal development while the female genes restrict fetal development.  This is because the male genes only want to replicate themselves and therefore want the best for the fetus and the fetus alone, and that the female genes also want to replicate and therefore need to survive and furthermore keep the womb healthy for additional pregnancies.  Obviously that's the oversimplified version, for more check out genetic imprinting.

Also, on an experience basis, yes again.

Answer 14

No. They are supposed to be with one mate and fend and feed his offspring he creates and not go off abandoning them and produce more offspring else where before moving off again.

Why do men get upset if cheated on if they are supposed to just go around procreating with any female he can?