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Discuss sexual dimorphism in a human skeleton

User Kamo
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Sexual Dimorphism of the Human Skeleton. The human skeleton is not as sexually dimorphic as that of many other primate species, although human female skeletons tend to be smaller and less robust than human male skeletons within a given population. There are also subtle differences between males and females in the morphology of the skull, teeth, longs bones, and pelvis.

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User Emax
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While the anatomy and physiology of human reproduction differ between the sexes, the effects of hormones on skeletal growth do not. Human bone growth depends on estrogen. Greater estrogen produced by ovaries causes bones in female bodies to fuse before males' resulting in sex differences in adult height and mass. Female pelves expand more than males' due to estrogen and relaxin produced and employed by the tissues of the pelvic region and potentially also due to greater internal space occupied by female gonads and genitals. Evolutionary explanations for skeletal sex differences (aka sexual dimorphism) that focus too narrowly on big competitive men and broad birthing women must account for the adaptive biology of skeletal growth and its dependence on the developmental physiology of reproduction. In this case, dichotomizing evolution into proximate‐ultimate categories may be impeding the progress of human evolutionary science, as well as enabling the popular misunderstanding and abuse of it.

User Liorsolomon
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