[ExI] mate selection vs sotf

[spike]

Darwin's Origin of Species details two mechanisms involved in speciation:
survival of the fittest and mate selection.  My neighbor's visit this
evening caused me to wonder if in the case of humans, the two mechanisms can
both be at work simultaneously and in concert.

 

This neighbor is an Inuit, a short round person, clearly built for survival
in very cold climates.  The traditional explanation is that tall thin people
in northern Asia and far northern America could not survive the brutal cold,
so the surviving genes were those which shaped the bodies of the peoples in
those climates.  But could not mate selection have worked there too?  Is it
conceivable that people living in the far north could look at individuals
and realize that the short round build would just work better?  Could not
that realization have made the short round individuals more desirable mates?
If so, would not they reproduce with a slightly higher differential?  If so,
is that an example of mate selection and SOTF working together?  And if so,
would not that explain how the body build of the northern Asians could have
diverged so far from the African build in just a few thousand generations?

 

spike

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