It might be a guy known as Donor 401 -- if you trace your ancestry back 50,000 years.

The Post has been diligently tracking the progeny of Donor 401, a man of German extraction who tans well and whose sperm is in great demand. The number of 401's children is at least 14, which would have been an impressive number to me had I not just completed Nicholas Wade's book "Before the Dawn" and learned that the late Genghis Khan had about 500 wives and concubines, producing enough children so that now, if you do the math, they have generated 16 million males alone -- or "about 0.5 percent of the world's total." Donor 401, you have a ways to go.

But on account of Wade's book, I strongly suspect that Donor 401 and Genghis Khan operated out of the same imperative -- to pass on their genes to the next generation. This, after all, is our genetic obligation, and in Wade's view -- or at least in his observation -- it is why some men go into politics. He quotes former French president Francois Mitterrand, who said, "I don't know of a single head of state who hasn't yielded to some kind of carnal temptation, small or large. That in itself is a reason to govern." Better than narrowing the deficit, I would volunteer.

In fact, from what Wade suggests, Donor 401 is a sly fellow, pulling off what in evolution is the ultimate triumph: getting others, particularly men, to raise his progeny. Those who have no biological children of their own are evolution's total losers. Their genes end with them and that, as we all know, is just a pity -- a fate truly worse than death: extinction.

For some time now, I have been excitedly inflicting this book on my friends. It is rich in scientific cynicism, the unsparing pragmatism of our cold and calculating genes. For instance, they have ensured that newborns in general are not only cute but look alike -- so the charmed but possibly cuckolded male will accept them as his own. It traces the history of mankind from the time, around 50,000 years ago, when human beings left Africa and started to spread throughout the world.

This is our prehistory. It lacks archeological or written records, but much of what happened can be discerned from our DNA. This is all relatively new to us, but by peering into our most basic living material, snoopy scientists are beginning to see how we evolved -- and why. For instance, the gene that permits us to digest lactose as adults is a relatively new development -- linked, no doubt, to the advent of agriculture. Genetically speaking, we are still on the move.

On some level, love and sex come down to a competition to spread our genes and become the dominant male. Seems to me that Donor 40was the big winner of his day.

Posted by: Greg at 10:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 495 words, total size 3 kb.