Is Sexual Selection Intelligent Guidance? Discuss

[T_aquaticus]

@John_Harshman

I think it’s a bit disingenuous to think that’s what I was saying.

Sarcasm doesn’t transmit well over the interwebs.

@John_Harshman

Hard to be sure, but do you think it’s likely?

My gut reaction is that they don’t have an inner dialogue like we do, but my inner skeptic keeps pointing to the obvious bias in that conclusion.

[John_Harshman]

@T_aquaticus

My gut reaction is that they don’t have an inner dialogue like we do, but my inner skeptic keeps pointing to the obvious bias in that conclusion.

One might point to the surprising amount of stupidity in some animal behaviors: the gull who prefers a giant, wooden egg to her own real egg, the wasp that, interrupted in provisioning her nest by slightly moving the prey item, must start the whole process again, the warbler who fails to notice that her child is a cowbird, and so on.

[T_aquaticus]

@John_Harshman

One might point to the surprising amount of stupidity in some animal behaviors: the gull who prefers a giant, wooden egg to her own real egg, the wasp that, interrupted in provisioning her nest by slightly moving the prey item, must start the whole process again, the warbler who fails to notice that her child is a cowbird, and so on.

All good points. There are a lot of stupid human behaviors we could add to the list. More to the point, I’m sure we could find instances of stupid mate selection within our own species, perhaps in our own circle of friends.

My main point is that we can make some generalizations, but we shouldn’t be committing to absolutes when it comes to intelligence in other species.

[Faizal_Ali]

@NLENTS

Yes but this is obviously a spandrel. Doing calculus wasn’t the adaptation. Calculation and pattern recognition were the adaptations, and then those skills merged with language and were then swept up in the gale force winds of cultural evolution (evolution at “warp speed”)

I was being a bit facetious in referring to differential calculus, which I think quite clearly is a spandrel.

I still think it could be argue that the degree of intelligence required to come up with something like that is far in excess of what would be needed for bare survival, and if potential sexual partners were just turned on by braininess that could explain where our grotesquely swollen cerebral hemispheres came from.

Or maybe it would have ended up like this. Who knows?

HOW THE ONE PERCENT RISE TO POWER---SNL - THE HOMINIDS

[John_Harshman]

@T_aquaticus

My main point is that we can make some generalizations, but we shouldn’t be committing to absolutes when it comes to intelligence in other species.

OK. But would we mean by calling sexual selection “intelligent guidance”? I would suggest the model of artificial selection, in which a breeder arranges particular matings with a specific goal in mind and some knowledge of inheritance. If that’s the model, sexual selection isn’t it. If there’s a different model, what?

[T_aquaticus]

@John_Harshman

If there’s a different model, what?

How we humans use our intelligence to choose mates would be the obvious starting point. The first question we would have to ask is how much intelligence is involved and how much is sub-conscious and/or instinctual. I think we would need answers to much deeper questions of human intelligence, psychology, and consciousness itself.

[AlanFox]

Just a general observation. It seems to me “intelligence” is an extremely wooly concept in need of either a clear definition or dispensing with altogether.

[John_Harshman]

One would also need to know if there were some effect of genetics on mate choice or of mate choice on genetics in order for sexual selection to be invoked. Does, for example, wealth (if it affects mate choice) signal something about the genetics of the individual?

[NLENTS (Nathan H. Lents)]

@AlanFox

It seems to me “intelligence” is an extremely wooly concept in need of either a clear definition or dispensing with altogether.

Heartily agree.

@Faizal_Ali

I still think it could be argue that the degree of intelligence required to come up with something like that is far in excess of what would be needed for bare survival,

Definitely, but I think it speaks to how much “head meat” is necessary for the basics, when you don’t have oral language, let alone written.

[glipsnort (Steve Schaffner)]

@NLENTS

The opposite, I believe. It was my understanding that sexual selection is the leading hypothesis for the phenotypic differences that vary by biogeographical ancestry.

Well, it’s a hypothesis. I’m not sure how a hypothesis acquires the state of ‘leading’ without evidence, since different people have very different priors in this area.

@NLENTS

The differences I mean are in facial features, body hair coverage

Is there any evidence that these are adaptive features? We have plenty of evidence that differences in pigmentation and metabolism are adaptive, but I haven’t seen any for these traits.

@NLENTS

texture, and thickness,

Selection on sweat gland density? That would be my guess, at least for East Asian hair.

[Faizal_Ali]

@NLENTS

Definitely, but I think it speaks to how much “head meat” is necessary for the basics, when you don’t have oral language, let alone written.

OK, that makes a lot of sense.

Similar, I guess, to how we evolved an unusual cardiovascular endurance, IIRC. We don’t need that so much because of technological innovations, so now some of us make us of it in non-utilitarian activities like competing in triathlons.