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From: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Newsgroups: soc.men,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Sexual selection
Message-ID: <914@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu>
Date: 11 Mar 88 13:55:00 GMT
References: <1566@mmm.UUCP> <3138@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> <1164@microsoft.UUCP> <3455@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <3232@zeus.TEK.COM> <13400@sri-unix.SRI.COM> <913@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <25443@cca.CCA.COM>
Reply-To: vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn)
Organization: SUNY Binghamton, NY
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In article <25443@cca.CCA.COM> g-rh@CCA.CCA.COM.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>Let me make it simple, and talk about buying apples for a moment.  When
>you eat an apple you want one that is ripe, does not have worms in it,
>is not spoiled or bruised, and so on.  So what do you do when you go
>to buy apples -- you look for one that is red, looks juicy, and is
>unblemished.  The vendors of apples want to sell you apples, so they
>take due care to provide apples that meet these criteria.

Ah, I'm begining to see some parallels to other problems.  Perhaps this
is essentially a problem of evidence.  The female has a theory that
certain characteristics (e.g.  big tails, height, bulk) are good
evidence for genetic fitness.  Let us presume that originally this is
justified.  Then the "battle of the sexes" kicks in, and the males try
to increase the evidence, and don't give two hoots about the continued
validity of the evidence for the fitness.  The poor females are stuck,
without intelligence, and then a natural positive feedback process
ensues, resulting, ultimately, in the demise of the males whose
exagerrated sexual characteristics finally become de-selective (e.g. 
tails so big they can't even walk anymore) for that individual (although
still highly sexually selective). 

>This is the general theory.  Human beings, at this point, are in a
>special category; our sexual selection process does not match our
>evolution -- we have mixed it all up by having intelligence and
>civilization.

But presumably the above scenario was in effect throughout homonid
evolution, and modern dimorphism is the "residual" effect of that.  And
even though humans, through our intelligence, are free to ignore sexual
selection pressurres, I think we'd all agree that they are still
*frequently* adhered to (e.g.  frat boys/girls :->). 

O---------------------------------------------------------------------->
| Cliff Joslyn, Professional Cybernetician 
| Systems Science Department, SUNY Binghamton, New York, but my opinions
| vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu
V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .