Sexual Selection

Sexual Selection

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on my feelings about the slowdown or halt of human evolution. After giving it some further thought and study, I felt I needed to come back and make an essential clarification. Often I am thinking out a idea in my head that is framed within a certain set of parameters that may not be expressed when I expound on the idea. This was the case in my previous blog.

In that blog I was speaking solely to "Natural Selection Pressure". That is the distilled down version of the more crude idea of "Survival of the Fittest". Not to say that SOTF is in any way incorrect, however, natural selection pressure is so complex that "Fitness" is not to be defined lightly.

Many people are unaware (sadly) that Darwin stated that evolution is driven by two main engines, "Natural Selection" and "Sexual Selection". For many reasons, the first is well known while the second has been rather obscure until lately.

The easiest definition is "Natural Selection" determines "If you survive to sexual maturity". "Sexual Selection" determines if you get to mate or not once you get there.

Due to somewhat prudish overtones in society and science, sexual selection has been given a reserved cubical in the back of the room. Which is strange, since it is responsible for most of the unique characteristics of the human race. Art, Culture, Music, Sports, Etc. all developed by sexual selection. There are no survival advantages to being able to play a guitar, or to using your resources to buy a Ferrari. However, when you bring in the likelihood of mating.....that's another story.

It has been theorized that the development of the human brain was entirely the result of sexual selection. From an evolutionary standpoint our brains got far too large, far too quickly for natural selection. They took a lot more energy than they gave back. Later, they would develop energy saving devices that would offset this, but natural selection isn't an investment banker. It doesn't give something now with hopes of return in the future. Natural selection must have results now. So, that wasn't the reason for our brain development. HOWEVER, sexual selection answers the question nicely. Those with larger brains, given to more creative, entertaining minds..... mated more often and produced more offspring.

So how does this change my earlier ascertains? It doesn't. If anything it makes the prognosis worse. You see where Natural Selection has a blind, relentless drive toward survival, Sexual Selection is very suggestive and given to whim. Sexual selection assumes you have already survived and then makes changes to suit itself. Those changes are not at all tied to the survival of the species and may in fact be detrimental to that survival.

Take for example the Peacock / Peahen relationship. Peahen's sexual selection favored big, brightly colored plumage displays. 3 foot long feathers with blue and bronze coloration. Taking the early, defensive "Eye" pattern of the male's feathers and expanding it to extreme proportions. The bigger, longer tail made the male awkward. It was easier to be caught by predators and overall less likely to survive. If it weren’t for domestication, it probably would have gone extinct. Yet, this was the direction Sexual selection took it. Down a path to extinction.


Think about that next time you are watching some hottie on the "X-Games".

C