<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 1:00 PM, John Clark <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"></font><font size="4">Well... I've read Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation and the entire book is pretty much a report on the outcome of evolutionary computer simulations that Axelrod performed. A</font><span style="font-size:large">nd I've read Richard Dawkins's The Extended Phenotype (the best book on evolutionary</span><span style="font-size:large"> biology I know of) which has a good amount of math. And the work of E O Wilson and Robert MacArthur got me interested in the subject in the first place. Was there anything specific you have read that I may have overlooked?</span></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>### So where in these books did you find mechanistic descriptions of species dying out because males' tails got too long? Please give chapter and page numbers.</div><div><br></div><div>-----------------------</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"></div><font size="4">From an Evolutionary point of view it doesn't matter if individuals survive or not, it only matters if their genes do.<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>It might not reduce the survival of the female but it would reduce the survival of the female's genes because they will now be mixed with the gene for enormously impractical antlers (a male elk could receive the gene for exceptionally large antlers from his mother). So now the female's offspring have the gene for liking big impractical antlers that they got from their mother AND the gene for producing<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>big impractical antlers that they got from their<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>father; so that team of genes is headed for a positive feedback loop. And positive feedback<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>loops<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> </div>seldom have gentle <div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">happy </div>endings.</font></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>### This is incomprehensible. Just give me references to peer-reviewed primary literature (not Gould's though) showing that runaway sexual selection feedback loops plausibly cause species extinction.</div><div><br></div><div>---------------- </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div></div><div><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">And if I asked why it is silly I already know what you'd say "because you're being anthropomorphic". Yes I know I'm being anthropomorphic but it is a fact that human beings are part of the universe thus anthropomorphism can be a useful tool in figuring out how Evolution works, sometimes as an analogy and sometimes, as in this case, literally. The female elk REALLY doesn't want to</font><span style="font-size:large;font-family:arial,sans-serif"> settle for a geek with ugly small antlers regardless of how practical they are, and she REALLY does want </span><span style="font-size:large;font-family:arial,sans-serif">bling not practicality.</span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> </span></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>### No, anthropomorphic psychologizing has no part in figuring out how evolution works.</div><div><br></div><div>Rafał</div></div>
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