Re: evolution by mate selection, gene manipulation

From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2003 - 00:27:16 MDT

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    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? I dunno. I wince when I think of what it might mean
    > for the future of the human species.
    >
    > -gts

    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.

    spike



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