[ExI] evolutionary puzzle

[William Flynn Wallace]

There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into all
animals including us, but most of ours are probably* psychological *at this
point.  dylan

Yeah?  And just what do you mean by that?  Please explain.

bill w

On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 3:38 PM, Dylan Distasio <interzone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Symmetry is another tell for good genes and attractive in potential mates.
>
> Another example of preprogrammed behaviors can be found in birds.  Mother
> turkeys are great moms as long as their babies chirp.  If a non-chirping
> baby is born, they will generally peck them to death as the chirping is a
> tell for a healthy baby.
>
> In robins, males will attack just the right shade of red feathers when it
> is presented to them.  They don't even need a whole stuffed bird to be
> triggered.
>
> There are likely a large number of heuristic short cuts programmed into
> all animals including us, but most of ours are probably psychological at
> this point.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 4:30 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 12:43 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> ​> ​
>>>  how would the instinct to not mess with the skunk get encoded into the
>>> genes?  The skunk’s non-lethal defense would not seriously impact the
>>> unwise dog’s reproductive capacity (temporary delay only.)
>>>
>>> ​
>> The lifetime of all animals is temporary. For several hours after an
>> animal has been sprayed by a skunk its going to be visually blind, have no
>> sense of smell and is going to be stumbling around distracted by pain;
>> during that time its going to be more vulnerable to predators.
>> ​ ​
>> I don't know exactly how much that will decrease it's chances of passing
>> along its
>> ​ ​
>> genes
>> ​ ​
>> into the next generation but it would certainly be greater than zero and
>> over thousands of generations it would add up, animals that didn't like the
>> look of skunks would have an advantage over animals that had no such
>> aversion.
>>
>> Of course this couldn't work if a predator didn't have a quick and easy
>> way to tell a skunk from a squirrel or some other small harmless animal,
>> and that's why
>> ​the​
>>  skunk evolved its distinctive white stripe. That's also why extremely
>> poisonous small frogs and insects have super bright day-glow colors, but
>> its a constant arms race, some species don't bother making the poison and
>> would be good to eat but they mimic the bright coloration of the poisonous
>> animal, so that animal must evolve a even more conspicuous marker.
>> ​
>>
>> It
>> ​ ​
>> reminds me a bit of sexual selection. Why do male peacocks have such a
>> ridiculously large tail when a cumbersome thing
>> ​like that makes them very poor flyers and ​
>> must greatly reduce
>> ​their​
>>  chances of having a long life? Because female peacocks like large tails.
>> ​Why do females like long tails? Because to
>> mate with the healthiest males
>> ​ they needed a marker that could quickly let them tell a healthy male
>> from a unhealthy one, and long ago Evolution must have decided large tails
>> were a pretty good rule of thumb for that. But Evolution is not perfect and
>> things can get out of hand.
>>
>> In the population there is going to be genes for producing tails of
>> various sizes and genes for liking tails of various sizes​
>> ​,​
>> birds with midsize tail
>> ​s​
>> would make the best flyers and have the longest life but from peacock's
>> genes point of view this was obviously not the most important
>> consideration. So females who have genes for liking the long
>> ​est​
>> tails would mate with males with genes for making the longest tails
>> producing offspring that have both types of genes. This will lead to a
>> disastrous positive feedback loop ending only when the advantage of
>> superior flight performance
>> ​and longer life ​
>> of birds with midsize
>> ​tails ​
>> outweighs the greater difficulty
>> ​ in​
>> finding a mate.
>>
>>  John K Clark
>>
>>
>>
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