"If you're reading this then you - or the male you have bought it for - are the worst man in history. No ifs, no buts - the worst man, period."
This opening line of Peter McAllister's new book "Manthropology: The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male" may sting male egos around the world, but it is actually founded in real history.
McAllister, an Australian anthropologist who studied at the University of New England and the University of Queensland, has concluded, after much research and analysis, that modern humans pale in comparison to their earlier counterparts.
University Anatomy and Biology Prof. Theodore Homyk agreed with McAllister's proposals. "Anthropologists studying the human brain and human genomics have shown that human evolutionary change has been proceeding at a faster pace in recent history," he said.
McAllister wrote the book to "'puncture some pretensions'," as he said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald's Deborah Smith. "We tend to assume that in modern civilization everything we do is better than how it has been done before," he said.
His research, however, has proven otherwise.
The book gives several examples of how historical humans, ranging from Roman legionnaires to Australian Aboriginals, could run faster, endure more and were generally more physically adept than modern man. McAllister claims even Osama Bin Laden fails as a modern terrorist and would never have made Genghis Khan's army.
In one particular case, McAllister investigates an early 20th century photograph by a German anthropologist of the Rwandan Tutsi initiation ritual. This particular ritual required young men to jump their own height to be considered a man of the tribe - a formidable feat.
"After high jumping for seven years now, I have seen many people attempt high jumping and many high jumpers never come close to jumping their own height," said third-year student-athlete Gregory Nelson, a high jump competitor. "Jumping one's own height as an initiation rite seems like an extremely unrealistic goal and would require the entire culture to be very naturally athletic and coordinated."
Nelson, who is eighth on the University's list of all-time high jumpers, can jump his own height - close to 7 feet - but it has taken him years of intense training to accomplish this task.
"I attribute it to a combination of part natural ability and coordination and countless hours of training, professional coaching and study of the event itself," he said. "In order for me to continue to jump even higher above my head in college, I have had to train for numerous hours six days a week with my coach, who specializes in jumping, and also add weight training three times a week."
The physiological decline is not limited to just men, though. After biometric analysis of La Ferrassie 2, a Neanderthal woman discovered in France in 1909, McAllister concluded that she could have easily beaten California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former body builder, in an arm wrestling contest.
"Our earlier ancestors hunted herd animals much like the ancestors of dogs did - wearing down more fleet-footed animals by running them down over long distances," Homyk said. "Once the agricultural revolution took hold some 10,000 years ago, however, fleet-footedness became less important a trait for survival. Its value declined as, perhaps, the survival and reproductive value of other traits increased. The body's limited resources then went elsewhere."
So what does the future of humanity hold? Deepened decline or an epic comeback?
"Could we recover these abilities? Certainly, by removing the modern conveniences that make life and survival easier and subjecting our population to the stringent conditions that the Australian Aborigines were subjected to," Homyk postulated. "This would take hundreds of generations and, in the meantime, a lot of sacrifice - only about 20 to 30 percent of live births in those times survived to adulthood - quite stringent selection. Can you imagine what it would be like today for a woman to have to bear eight children in order to have two survive to replace her and her husband?"
Not all anthropologists, however, agree with McAllister's approach.
"There's something serious missing from the book," University Asst. Anthropology Prof. Wende Marshall said. "There are a lot of health issues in the world impacting physical ability. You can't lump all people together and compare them across cultures or time like he's done. It's important ... to understand the specific cultural circumstances, too."
McAllister acknowledges, though, that his book does not address the triumphs of modern humans that were accomplished at the expense of physical prowess. He also admits that modern males have fewer opportunities to express their full potential.
"Everyday opportunities to face real peril have almost evaporated," McAllister said in the interview with The Sydney Morning Herald.
Nelson agreed that the modern-day man's physiological decline may be correlated to society's technological advances.
"More and more people are looking for ways to do things while expending as little energy as possible, so in a way, things are becoming much easier," Nelson said. "Today, most jobs don't require any kind of physical activity and people are, overall, becoming more and more un-athletic and unhealthy."
Because of contemporary culture's predisposition toward laziness, Homyk said that society is likely unwilling to go through the hassle of reclaiming man's once athletic prowess.
"We would be too impatient to wait 10,000 years and too 'spoiled' to make such sacrifices. If we attempt to recover these physiological capabilities, we will more likely do so through genetic engineering," Homyk said. "Some speculate that within a decade or two, we will have the genetic engineering technology to literally design an athlete, or anyone else for that matter, with any combination of traits that would enable them to excel. We already have the ability and the inclination to do so with our animal friends"
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