You may have heard this one before, but supposedly around 16 million men alive today are descended from Genghis Khan. What has that got to do with the credit crunch? – well, actually, quite a lot.

The great Khan conquered more than half the world. And that was good news, not just for Tamujin himself (Genghis’s real name) but for his brothers, his cousins, and even his second and third cousins, even the ones that died before the great Mongolian empire was created. At least it was good for their genes.

The great evolutionary scientist Bill Hamilton from Oxford was supposedly in a pub on one occasion, when he was asked if he would jump into a river to save someone from drowning. It is said he grabbed a napkin, for jotting down some quick calculations, and announced: “No, but I would do it for two brothers or eight cousins.”

According to some scientists from the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, it appears males have an incentive to be especially brave, and indeed aggressive, even if this usually results in failure.

The rare occasions when this strategy succeeds, yields benefits, in terms of reproductive success, that can be enormous. Not only is the gene relating to the successful individual then passed on, this also means that most of the DNA relating to that individual’s relatives are passed on, too.

If the purpose of evolution is the successful reproduction of DNA, then it makes sense to die childless, if that sacrifice ensures a close relative is unusually successful at reproducing.

Now reconsider this in view of research reported in the FT yesterday.

Scientists from Cambridge reckon they have found evidence that entrepreneurs have enhanced activity in the “medial and orbital sectors of the prefrontal cortex”.

They found that entrepreneurs react to risk, such as in a gambling environment, in a different way from the rest of us. In short, risk taking seems to be hardwired into them.

From an evolutionary point of view, you can see why this is so.

Now see that in the context of bankers with their crazy risk taking in recent years. You can see where the gene that motivates them comes from.

It has all gone horribly wrong, of course.

But in the previous cycle, their madness funded technology. Bust followed, but the benefits of that boom could underpin growth for the next century.

And when you see it from the point of view of Genghis Khan, it all makes sense.

See: for full set of articles on this theme

Bring back risk – it’s too risky not to
Why risk is skewed against risk takers
How Genghis Khan can explain the credit crunch
Do you hve the brian of an entrpreneur?
The innovative brain