LogFAQs > #962144257

I was a while in writing that post and reading some more stuff.

Even in modern humans, the fact that men are "stronger" than women is 90% social construct. women are literally scared away from working out too much and "getting too big." sure testosterone or whatever, but if you ever go to the gym you know there is nothing stopping girls from getting ripped except societal standards.

think about the varsity girls in high school, they could kick most people's ass.

I've worked out with women as workout partners and inevitably they are lifting as much as me in many areas in just as much time as it would take a guy.

Anyway the Penn State article talks about how it was previously thought that levels of dimorphism were high (that's why you guys are finding so much stuff about that, this new research is only 7 years old).

"Previous convention in the field was that there were high levels of dimorphism in the Australopithecus afarensis population," said Philip Reno, assistant professor of anthropology, Penn State. "Males were thought to be much larger than females."

[...]

The article goes on, but it talks about how the statistical methodology used in the past was wrong, with Lucy being assumed to be a typical sample, and thus counted many times in most calculations (specifically in the past when there were less available samples). The new study just counts every sample that we have once.

edit: to therefore discover that dimorphism was less in the past and has increased with time, rather than the inverse, or staying stable.