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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">>How does this extravagance fit into the
notions of economy that underlie Paul Werbos' Laplaceian math? And how
does this excess production of new form fit into a universe that many think is
ruled by the form-destroying processes of entropy?</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV></DIV>hi HB: Have you read
Geoffrey Miller's <EM>The Mating Mind</EM>? I <EM>think</EM> he answers
this question--and more! Here's a little bit:</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2>From page 124 and 128:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2>"Zahavi suggested that most sexual ornaments are "handicaps":
they advertise true fitness by handicapping an individual with a survival cost .
He also argued that handicaps should be the only evolutionary stable kinds of
sexual ornament, because they are the only ones that convey the
information about fitness that individuals really want when makig sexual
choices. His paper unleashed a storm of protest. The handicap idea seemed
absurd. Throughout the late 1970s the handicap principle was attacked by almost
every eminent evolutionary theorist. Surely sexual selection could not have an
intrinsic drive to produce wasteful displays that impair survival? Apparently,
most biologists in the 1970s had not read Thorstein Veblen. They did not make
the connection between conspicuous consumption to advertise wealth <FONT
color=#000000>and costly sexual ornaments to advertise fitness. Without that
connection it was hard to see how Zahavi's handicap principle could
work....How could sexual selection favor fitness indicators that impaired an
animal's survival prospects? How could mate choice favor a costly, useless
ornament over a a cheaper, more beneficia ornament?........</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>As with Veblen's conspicuous consumption
principle, the form of the cost does not matter much. What matters is the
prodigious waste. The waste is what keeps the fitness indicators
honest."</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Miller
then goes on to talk re Rowe and Houle and their 1996 paper re 'genic
capture'...which, from the description in TMM, might be of interest to you
if you don't know it...</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">e-Galley
okay?</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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face="Times New Roman"></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">lots of
best wishes,</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">aa</FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>