Evolution doesn't try to balance anything - evolution is not a person, and it doesn't think.
There is a slight difference in the swimming speed of XX vs XY sperm, which accounts for the difference. Also I believe females have a slightly better survival ratio, the reasons are complicated, but include the fact that all fetuses start as female, and then are modified by testosterone to be male, i.e. female is the default. Plus females have XX so some genes are doubled which helps them.
It's pretty much impossible for a father to make just one or the other because of that way it's produced.
The father has XY cells, which split in half to make sperm, one half become a male sperm the other female. So sperm is always made in pairs.
There can be differences in the mother that affect one or the other differently though (PH for example, and the sperm are not the same size).
I wasn't suggesting that evolution thinks, I was suggesting that we've evolved to produce more males so that there's an optimum 50/50 balance of the number of males and females at around early adulthood. Considering some of the other things that evolution has achieved that seems like a pretty reasonable thing to suggest.
Your explanation of whether certain couples can only produce males or females was pretty interesting though, thanks.
There is a slight difference in the swimming speed of XX vs XY sperm, which accounts for the difference. Also I believe females have a slightly better survival ratio, the reasons are complicated, but include the fact that all fetuses start as female, and then are modified by testosterone to be male, i.e. female is the default. Plus females have XX so some genes are doubled which helps them.
It's pretty much impossible for a father to make just one or the other because of that way it's produced.
The father has XY cells, which split in half to make sperm, one half become a male sperm the other female. So sperm is always made in pairs.
There can be differences in the mother that affect one or the other differently though (PH for example, and the sperm are not the same size).