Should We Rewrite Some History?

Things Would Have Been a LOT Different Without Alpha males

If this parasite, Toxoplasma gondii 

is a main cause of Alpha males,

a tiny parasite changed the 

course of human history. 

[re: My last blog post — about Alpha wolves and their parasites, I’m still researching, and what I find keeps blowing my elderly mind.]

Since there have been human Alpha males all through recorded history, I assume they were around for some of pre-history as well.  Alpha males, risk-taking, overly confident, aggressive men, egged on by T.gondii since the time we started getting infected with them in significan numbers. (See “cats” below) Society’s evolution has been seriously impacted by this kind of man... particularly the "hyper Alphas..." 

I'm Genghis

I'm Alex

I'm Atilla

...like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun et al, and the huge collection of Pharaohs, Kings, Emperors, and other autocrats who "rose to the top" with their Alpha brains driving them. 

If this protozoan parasite actually affects male behavior in the complex way we define as “making males more Alpha,” then it has had a profound effect on our species. Imagine humanity without Alphas. (I think I sense a sci-fi story here.) 

I assume that there are varying degrees of T.gondii infection (titers), thus the “load” of chronic cysts varies from man to man. Further, I assume this load correlates with the degree of behavioral/psychological effects. Guys like Genghis probably had a full load. Your average Alpha insurance salesman probably has less of a load.

Obviously, societies were impacted. I’m guessing the ultimate 

irrational behavior of our species, war, was one result. 

War became a defining behavior of our species.

We are living in the resulting societies.

If some serious scientists pursue this idea, I hope they can discover when humans first contracted toxoplasmosis, confirming that the T.gondii parasite was doing its behavior modification thing from that point on. 

I keep thinking that cats are involved.  Maybe it's only since we "domesticated" cats, since felines are the main carrier of T.gondii. Before that we surely exchanged parasites with wild carriers, sharing a leopard’s prey or inhaling poop dust from infected rats, but this was probably rare.  Living with domesticated cats was a whole new level of exposure.

I'm Black (Kitty)

If the timing of cat domestication and the first indications of Alpha male influence coincide, slam dunk! If cat domestication and the end of the Neanderthals overlap, perhaps the first hyper-Alpha H. Sapiens led the battles of Neanderthal extermination. 

Here’s my most recent find covering some of this ground: 

https://stanleyresearch.org/patient-and-provider-resources/toxoplasmosis-schizophrenia-research/effects-t-gondii-on-behavior-and-psychiatric-symptoms/

^{I’ll keep you posted.}