RE: evolution by mate selection, gene manipulation

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2003 - 20:55:10 MDT

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    Spike writes

    > gts wrote:
    > > Spike wrote in a different thread related to diet:
    > > > My notion is that in general, the evolutionary
    > > > mechanism of mate selection leads to a number of
    > > > positive feedback mechanisms, whereas survival
    > > > selection more often leads to negative feedback
    > > > mechanisms.
    > >
    > > I'm not sure I can agree with this, spike. Judging by the fame and fortune
    > > of women like Marilyn Monroe, and by her marriage to the late baseball star
    > > Joe DiMaggio, I think it's safe to say that many modern men are inclined to
    > > mate with women like her. Is this going to lead to positive feedback from
    > > modern mate selection?
    >
    > Hmmm, Im not sure what to make of your Marilyn Monroe
    > example. I think you are fearing that in modern times
    > the mentally deficient have a reproductive advantage
    > over their mentally adequate counterparts. Of this I
    > tend to agree, however this has little to do with the
    > survival of the species, for humans are currently faaaar
    > smarter than optimal for maximum reproduction, it would
    > seem.
    >
    > In any case, focus on the notion of evolution having two
    > distinct mechanisms, survival selection and mate selection,
    > the latter of which may be thought of as survival selection
    > at the genome level. I am interested in trying to make
    > simulations of evolution sophisticated enough to determine
    > if survival selection leads to negative feedback loops
    > whereas mate selection leads to positive feedback loops.
    > If this is true, does it matter if a mating is female-
    > choice dominated or male-choice dominated?
    >
    > Marilyn's dumbness was an act, by the way.

    Have any thoughts on whether unattractive people will tend
    to become more represented proportionally over time? Mostly
    just prurient interest on my part.

    As for evolution occurring at the present time, one needs
    selection as well as variation, and presently any woman
    appears to be able to have as many children as she wants.
    I haven't concluded anything about this yet, but it doesn't
    sound good.

    Lee



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