Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Document Type

Open Access Preprint

Anticipated Volume

85

Anticipated Issue

5

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of the causes of the variation of sex ratio (proportion male) at birth. This problem is common to a number of areas in biology and medicine e.g. obstetrics, neurology/psychiatry, parasitology, virology, oncology and teratology. It is established that there are significantly biased, but unexplained, sex ratios in each of these fields. Yet workers in them (with the possible exception of virology) have regarded the problem as a minor loose end, irrelevant to the field’s major problems. However, as far as I know, no-one has previously noted that unexplained biased sex ratios occur, and thus pose (perhaps similar) problems, in all these fields. Here it is suggested that similar sorts of solution apply in each. Further research is proposed for testing each solution. If the argument here is substantially correct across this range of topics, it may lead to an improved understanding not only of sex ratio, but of some of the pathologies in these specialties.

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