> > At 02:59 AM 28/08/70 +0000, David Leeper wrote:
Actually I wrote this:
> > I don't think I'm being subjective. One of the great puzzles of
> > evolution was why do peacocks grow those enormous tails? It takes
> > a lot of energy to grow the tails and they are at a disadvantage
> > when it comes to escaping predators. It is not a subjective opinion.
> > (The answer, BTW, is sexual selection. An adjunct to natural
> > selection, but certainly not non-Darwinian.)
>
> Actually, sexual selection is "non-Darwinian", since Darwin didn't, I
> believe, suggest or discuss it. It is not, however, anti-Darwinian, in
> that it doesn't deny any of Darwin's theory. Which is probably what you
> meant.
"Darwin first put forward the idea [of sexual selection] in
_The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex_ (1871).
... Almost a century earlier, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
had written that by consistently choosing stronger, better-
formed males as their mates, women had gradually improved the
human race."
(Sexual Selection, _The Encyclopedia of Evolution_)
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/