[ExI] [Bulk] Re: IQ and beauty

[rex]

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> [2015-10-07 01:45]:
>    On Sun, Oct 4, 2015 at 9:56 PM, spike <[1]spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
>      From: extropy-chat [mailto:[2]extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
>      Behalf Of John Clark
> 
>      >… In most animals the male is more flamboyant than the female but in
>      the case of the peacock the fashion race seems to have gotten out of
>      control…John K Clark
> 
> 
>      Evolution is filled with examples of species which sex-selected
>      themselves to extinction.  Stephen Jay Gould gives the example of a
>      branch of big horned elk.  The last fossils found shows that the antlers
>      were getting larger and larger for the males.  Apparently they got so
>      heavy the females could no longer bear the weight as they were mounted,
>      all while choosing males with the biggest antlers.
> 
>    ### I don't believe it. Does Gould give a rigorous mathematical analysis,
>    with simulations, of how allele frequencies could change to make a
>    heterogeneous population evolve out of this mortal coil all by itself,
>    without external influences and without assumptions that strain
>    credulity? 
>    Here are links to three articles right off the top of a google search:
>    [3]http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7557/full/nature14419.html
>    [4]http://www.kokkonuts.org/p/Sexy2die4.pdf
>    [5]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691875/
>    All three point towards sexual selection as generally increasing the
>    likelihood of species survival, and interestingly, the one experimental,
>    controlled study is the most supportive of sexual selection as increasing
>    survival.

As I'm sure you know he doesn't give an analysis. 

>    Gould was a very incompetent scientist with a bully pulpit.

He claimed others fudged their data, but later examination showed
Gould was the fudger and the original work he attacked was correct --
his talent for writing enabled him to achieve an undeserved status in
popular science books. Pros saw him as a fake with a PC agenda (e.g.,
_The Mismeasure of Man_) from the beginning.

-rex
--
"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe
themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions,
and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined."
   --B de Spinoza