Talk:Sexual selection/Archive 1

Main Picture

I know the picture now is a plate from Descent, but can we get something that better exemplifies the situation then a black and white drawing? Color being such a key trait, shouldnt it be color!? 'African long tailed widow bird'? --Mike 04:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

After merging parts of the Hungarian Wikipedia article with this English one, as suggested by a previous editor, we now have a color drawing at the top of the article (from Wikimedia Commons). -Boppet (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

R & K selection

"K- and r-selection One of the most famous types of sexual selection is selection by number of offspring.

Some animals, like human (sexually mature after adolescence) and Northern Gannet (5-6 years), produce few offspring. Others reproduce quickly, but unless raised in an artificial environment, most offspring do not survive to adults. A rabbit (mature after 8 months) produces 10 - 30 offsprings per year, a Nile Crocodile (15 years) produces 50, and a fruit fly (10-14 days) produces up to 900. Both strategies can be favoured by evolution: animals with few offspring can spend time nurturing and protecting them, hence greatly decreasing the need to reproduce; on the other hand, animals with many offspring do not need to spend parental energy on nurturing, allowing more energy to be devoted to survival and more breeding.

These two strategies are known as K-selection (few offspring) and r-selection (many offspring). (The letters "r" and "K" derive from the names used in the mathematical formulae in the original theory). Which strategy is favoured depends on a wide range of circumstances"

This was removed?! It should have been at least condensed and intergrated. --Mike 04:11, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Plants as well

It should be noted that sex.sel. manifests itself in plants as well, i.e. pollen discrimination. --Mike 22:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it does not manifest itself in plants. As I see it sexual selection is a tendency of a female to appreciate a particular trait in a man. Through positive feedback loops this trait will become more and more prominent, even in both sexes. (female meaning the sex investing most in producing the offspring). Pollen discrimination just excludes male plants that are too much related resulting in more outbreeding. Sexual selection will be more of an inbreeding process because of preference for similar traits.Viridiflavus (talk) 19:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

More info on Wallances gripes

"sexual selection were opposed strongly by his "co-discoverer" of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, though much of his "debate" with Darwin took place after Darwin's death. Wallace argued that the aspects of it which were male-male competition, while real, were simply forms of natural selection, and that the notion of "female choice" was attributing the ability to judge standards of beauty to animals far too cognitively undeveloped to be capable of aesthetic feeling (such as beetles). Historians have noted that Wallace had previously had his own problem with "female choice": he had been left at the altar by a woman of a higher social class."

Here is acutal text from him, and Fishers retort..

In butterflies the weeding out by natural selection takes place to an enormous extentin the egg, larva, and pupa states; and perhaps not more than one in a hundred of the eggs laid produes a perfect insect wihch lives to breed. Here, then, the importance of female selection, if it exists, must be complete; for, unless the most brilliantly coloured males are those which produce the best protected eggs, larvae, and ppupae, and unless the particular eggs, larvae, and pupae, which are able to survive, are those which produce the most brilliantly coloured butterflies, any choice the female might make must be completely swamped. If, on the other hand, there IS this correlatin between clour development and perefect adaptation at all stages, then this development will necessarily proceed by the agency of natrual selection and the general laws whioch determine the production of clour and of ornamental appendages. --Wallace

It should be observed that if one mature form has an advantage over another, represented by a greater expectiaton of offspring, this advantage is in no way diminished by the incidence of mortalityin the immature stages of development, provided there is no associeation between mature and immature characters. --R.A.Fisher --Mike 21:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Notes on Geometric Progression Theory section

(THIS THREAD IS A WORK IN PROGRESS)
This is to be added later in as articulate a manner as possible, with explination for the lay reader.

Fisher wrote about this in a game theoretic context, but it was really a problem to be treated by population-genetics theory. As Lande(1981) did, which I think was based off of O'Donald(sp?) who was a student of Fisher. J.M. Smith goes over this in EatToG, p131-137.

R.Lande's (1981) paper: http://www.memeoid.net/books/Lande/RLande.pdf

ROUGH notes on Landes Model, most of this is regurgitated JM Smith:

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

In this model it is assumed all females can mate and that there is no parental investment on the part of the male. The result is that there is no direct selection on females, since all females have the ability to mate and genes for ornimentation do no express themselves in females where they could impose bionomic survival effects. However, genes effecting female preference, y, will fluctuate in frequency since assortative mating creates genetic covariance between z and y; when z changes so will y. Males with genes for a large z tend to have genes for high y, and visa versa, (as in the Peacock example). The fitness of a male, with trait z, then depends on his chance of surviving to breed,$\phi z\,$, and on his success at mating (which is dependant on the distribution of female preference, as well as the trait values of other males).

Let

$z\,$ = messure of some male trait, such as tail length,

$y\,$ = a messure of the degree by which a female preferes z

and

$\phi z\,$ = the probabilty that a male,with trait z, survives to breed, based on the bionomic situation and the effects of Natural Selection on z,

$z_{opt}\,$ = suppposed optimal value for z with survival probablity falling off on either side

then

$\psi (z|y)\,$ = a function proportional to the chance that a male bearing tait z, will be chosen by a female of preference y

Thus, if there are two types of males z₁ and z₂ in proportions p and 1-p. The probability that a female with a preference of y will mate with the male bearing z₁ is

$p\psi (z_{1}|y)/[p\psi (z_{1}|y)+(1-p)\psi (z_{2}|y)]\,$

• pψ(z|y) takes into account the number of males, (p), of the selected type in comparison to other choices, (1-p); where as ψ(z|y) does not take the numbers of types of z into account, but simply defines the degree of compatibility between z and y.
• The probability that a female of type y will mate with male z₁ is equal to the number of males of type z₁ times the degree of compatibility between z₁ and y, divided by the total probability of y mating with both types of z, taking into consideration the compatibilty between y and each type of z.

Lande considered three types of functions for preference:

(i) Progressive preference: Females prefer large z, but each differ in the degree.

$\psi (z|y)=exp(yz)\,$

• Preference is a simple function of the natural base to the power of yz(the combined degree of preference and trait). y being a predetermined constant for a female, she will prefer the largest variable, z, possible, since her taste times the variable z is the power that raises the base.

(ii) Absolute preference: A y female prefers a male of tail length z=y, of the same degree as her taste, and the desire to mate decreases off each side of this value. k = A constant.(EXPLANATION FOR k ?!?)

$\psi (z|y)=exp[-k(z-y)^{2}]\,$

(iii) Relative preference: A y female prefers a male of a tail length greater then the population mean, ${\bar {z}}$, by an increase of y.

$\psi (z|y)=exp\{-k[z-({\bar {z}}+y)]^{2}\}\,$

The first conclusion from this, that genes for a degree of z tend to be accompanied by genes for high y, is that there is not a single equilibrium point but a line of possible equilibria. Each value of ${\bar {y}}$ has a commensurate value of ${\bar {z}}$ not having to correspond with $z_{opt}\,$. Additionally, each value for an ornamentation will have a certain degree of Natural Selection acting on its bionomic effects, and from this we can find a value of female preference to balance those effects. Secondarily, since linkage equalibrium is created from assortive mating, there is indirect Natural and Sexual Selection acting on female preference.

When a population does obtain a point along the line of equilibrium, all kenetic force created from the exponetial situation which moves it along its line of motion, has disipaited (See Figure 3). Equilibrium is reached when the forces of Natural Selection acting againt negative effects on classical fitness, $\phi z\,$, cancel the benifitial effects of Sexual Selection on reproductive fitness of z, $\psi (z|y)\,$.

Figure 2 illistrates the frequency distribution of z, for a absolute preference of ${\bar {y}}$, under the different selective pressures.

• (a) The distribution of zygotes containing z, prior to the effects of selection. A function of $p(z)\,$,
• (b) Natural selection pressure against the bionomical effects of different trait z values(not a population distribution). A function of $\phi z\,$,
• (c) The effects of Natural Selection against z, (b), over the distribution of $p(z)\,$, (a). The distribution of mature males. A function of $p(z)\phi (z)\,$,
• (d) The effects of the optimal value of ${\bar {y}}\,$ against different values of z. Simular to (b) (not a population distribution). A function of $\psi (z|{\bar {y}})\,$,
• (e) the frequency distribution of mature mating males with z after the effects of Natural Selection(c) and Sexual Selection(d) on the value of z. A function of $p^{*}(z)\psi (z|{\bar {y}})\,$,

(c) and (e) show the effects selection have on reducing variance.

-the line of equib is determined by NS pressure

(THIS MIGHT BE BETTER PLACED AFTER FIGURE 5? EXPLINATION - WITH THE CURVED LINE OF EQUALIBRIUM)
The results will sort of look sort of like Pun.Equi. , i.e. large spurts of ornimentation development until the brick wall of NS stops it. Maybe this is why Gould was so bloody confused ;)

"It is important to notice that the conditions of relative stability brought about by these or other means, will be far alonger duration than the process in which the ornaments are evolved. In most existing species the runaway process must have been already checked, and we should expect that the more extraordnary developments of sexual plumage ere not due like most characters to a long and even course of evolutionary progress, but to sudden spurts of change." R.A.Fisher (1930)

--Mike Spenard 21:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Mechanisms

There should be coverage of different poroposed mechanisms: Fisher's run-away process, direct benefits, and sensory exploitation should be included.

Also, the idea that female choice is more common, or strong, in more intellignet species is bunk.

--Pete Hurd

epigenetics

I removed the following:

The field of epigenetics is broadly concerned with the competence of adult organisms within a given sexual, social, and ecological niche, which includes the development of mating competences, e.g. by mimicking adult behavior.

This is idiosyncracy. "Epigenetics is the study of heritable gene expression that occurs without a change in DNA sequence. " http://biology.ecsu.ctstateu.edu/courses/molgen/Epigenetics

AxelBoldt, Sunday, April 14, 2002

prudery??

The following statement is made in the article:

"Ambiguous combinations of both types of selection acting on the same traits is usually referred to as natural selection. Some accounts refer to natural selection as strictly ecological and as distinct from sexual, but this appears to be a holdover from Victorian sexual prudery, and further fails to distinguish combinations of the two "natural" processes from other concepts of evolution, such as evolution of societies."

It's true that by 'natural selection' Darwin meant, essentially, 'ability to survive'. As far as he was concerned sexual selection was a different concept, introduced to explain phenomena such a peacock tails, which would seem to be a hindrance rather than a help to survival. What does this have to do with Victorian 'sexual prudery'. As for the point about social evolution, how is this relevant? Darwin didn't even use the term 'evolution' much, so this is surely an irrelevance - a mere quibble over terminology, not meaning. Paul B 16:51, 21 March 2005 (UTC)

Seconded. Prudery has got nothing to do with the "split" between natural and sexual selection. And I've no idea what that bit about "evolution of societies" is on about. --Plumbago 08:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the inadvertant resurrection of the phrase in my edit yesterday. I had recently downloaded the markup of the page, and thought I was editing it (offline), but I accidentally used a version I had stored a few months ago as the basis of my edit. It included the phrase, and it's one of the things I had decided not to change. I'll confirm that no other recent changes were similarly affected.--Johnstone 23:00, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Chimpanzee theory

I have removed the following since it lacks a reference:

"It has subsequently been theorized that this may have evolved because males tend to prefer to mate with females who are relatively youthful and healthy (and who are thus more likely to be fertile and survive pregnancy), and hairlessness is generally indicative with youthfulness. The general physiological resemblance between adult humans and adolescent chimpanzees (adult humans resemble young chimpanzees to a greater extent than they resemble young humans or adult chimpanzees) has recently been proposed as supportive evidence of this (the supposition being that the selection occurred at a time when the ancestors of humans resembled chimpanzees.)" [Includes my minor copyedit.]

--Johnstone 01:38, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

problem sentence?

I haven't read Fisher's stuff, but logically, didn't he mean the following? (My additions bolded)

However, 'sexual selection' typically refers to the process of female choice. R.A. Fisher pointed out that this female preference could be under genetic control and therefore subject to a combination of prior natural and sexual selection just as much as the qualities of the males that are actually 'preferred'.

Tony 00:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Largest vertebrate SSD?

A larger sexual size dimorphism in vertebrates has been documented.

Text from this article - "The largest sexual size dimorphism in vertebrates is the shell dwelling cichlid fish Neolamprologus callipterus in which males are up to 30 times the size of females."

Text from Photocorynus spiniceps article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocorynus_spiniceps) - "The male spends its life fused to its much larger female counterpart, which in some species are up to half a million times greater in mass."

Apparent source - "Dimorphism, parasitism, and sex revisited: Modes of reproduction among deep-sea ceratioid anglerfishes", Theodore W. Pietsch, Ichthyological Research (2005) 52(3): 207-236. http://uwfishcollection.org/staff/Dimorphism.pdf

-- Sharon Rose

Hmmm, the angler fish example is a bit exceptional due to the parasitic life-history. It's worth mentioning, certainly, but I wouldn't replace the callipterus example. In the callipterus, case both fish are independent, fully functioning adults throughout the life cycle. It's not clear to me whether the half million times mass difference (60X length asymmetry) refers to male mass before or after fusion and metamorphosis (not that it appears from this paper that they change much in size, but I seem to remember males of some of the anglerfish introgressing into the female and metamorphosing until they're pretty much nothing but testicular tissue living within the female's body cavity. Pete.Hurd 21:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Rare/Complicated/Unneeded wording

"less limiting sex (typically males)" what on earth does this mean?? Jackpot Den 22:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"...and this difference in initial investment creates differences in variance in expected reproductive success and bootstraps the sexual selection processes" Someone please reword this horribly incoherent sentence. What do you mean by differences in variance? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fritsky (talk • contribs) 02:44, 24 May 2006.

In a static situation organisms will fluctuate around a mean value for a character, this is variance. To create differences in variance, is to diverge from the average value of a trait.

The differance(s) brought about in the 'intitial investment' breaks this static situation, causing divergence from this mean, and the creation of difference in variance between the two sexes, for a trait. --Mike 17:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

references

The article has improved greatly recently, but I miss one thing, and that is references to actuall sources. Would it be possible to add those? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Kim, feel free to make any suggestions for references(within the article text or in the References Section at the bottom?). Glad to see someone noticed the work ive done on trying to improve this article :) --Mike 04:46, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Sexual Selection and intelligence in humans

I recently read "The Ancestors Tale" by Richard Dawkins. In that, as I understood it, he was suggesting that there is some thought that intelligence in hominids may well have been driven by sexual selection. Could be a useful addition in the sexual selection in humans section? Of course the down side is that it may be a contentious issue to some.

JohnT 12:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it may be worth noting, but the article should focus on the general principles and processes.. that and there is no shortage of theories on what caused human intelligence.--Mike Spenard 19:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

It makes a lot of sense still especialy because it might also explain musicality, social skills, language skills developing in an incredible pace. Note also that the selection based on survival alone has not been too strong, but that people in power could have thousands of descendants. Even nowadays men in power, rock stars, poets and writers have a lot of attraction on the opposite sex. The human case is a perfect example of sexual selection I think and it has had a tremendous influence on human society.Viridiflavus (talk) 00:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

An other excellent book you might want to on that subject is The Generous Man by Tor Nørretranders¨¨ victor falk 04:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Difficult paper reference

I'm severely unhappy with the following passage:

Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost, under the aegis of University of St Andrews, published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior that says blond hair evolved at the end of the last Ice Age by means of sexual selection. According to the study, northern European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males. The study argues that blond hair originated in the European region because of food shortages 10,000–11,000 years ago. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. Women with blond hair were more attractive to their mates and thus there was evolutionary pressure that increased the number of blonds.

So males died because of food shortage, but women...? This is a ridiculous study since it is well known that blondes have lighter coloured skin which leads them to produce more vitamin D than dark-haired people under the same conditions. It is a no-brainer that as people migrated North after the ice ages, they became exposed to lower light levels, and needed to produce more vitamin D, shortage of which can lead to medical conditions such as those listed here. I do not see how the study is notable within the scope of the article, and I generally strongly advise against including material more recent than five years old as part of avoiding original research. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree on this as well, its a similar objection to the one I voiced above, its an idea without much empirical evidence and peer validation. This article should stick to what is solid. I'll work on going thru the rest of the article for this sort of thing when I finish with the Geom.Prog. section. --Mike Spenard 19:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I was still intrigued by the statements and found the article on a some "White Supremacy Blog" (http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/comments/the_evolution_of_blond_hair_and_blue_eyes_among_nordics/ . Probably it reinforces people in racist opinions. Still sexual selection and blond hair, blue eyes seems entirely plausible. The time frame in which the selection took place is relatively short, which points to sexual as opposed to natural selection for vitamin D deficiency. Shortage of men due too the high mortality on long hunting trips seems plausible too.The most succesful and strongest hunters would have first pick at rare blond women and have produced large numbers of blond offspring. The vitamin D explanation is not valid however, because hair color is not related to skin color (except for red hair).

Viridiflavus (talk) 15:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

peacock predator distraction hypothesis

This edit [1] by User:Corvun "added note that the bright color of male birds may distract predators from females and offspring", seems kooky. It ads in part "By distracting predators from his offspring and giving said predators a satisfying meal, he greatly increases his offspring's chances of surviving until reproductive age." Perhaps I missed it, but I've never heard this theory being advanced in the literature. Given what little I know about the peacock's mating system, I find it really hard to believe that it's true. The original edit ended with "And since males are far more expendible in terms of population dynamics than females, distracting the attention of predators away from females and attracting attention to males bennefits the gene-pool as a whole." which waves all kinds of red flags. I think the whole paragraph, in it's present form, should go unless reliable sources are provided. Pete.Hurd 20:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Female choice

This should probably be merged into a larger article, possibly this one. If someone involved in editing in this area wants to go ahead and merge it that would be fine. Richard001 07:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Nothing much to merge there. Redirected. Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sexual selection for skin colour

• "Darwin hypothesized that sexual selection could also be what had differentiated between different human races, as he did not believe that natural selection provided a satisfactory answer. However, Darwin also doubted that characteristics of races he considered to be "inferior" would have been attractive to potential mates."

The first sentence is correct, the second one is not, I am fairly certain. My reading of Descent of Man was that Darwin goes to extreme pains to emphasize he thinks beauty is completely relative, that even things that seem unattractive to you and me could be attractive to someone else (or another species). I don't recall, in my reading of Descent of Man that he talks at all about "inferior" races (quotes or not) in relation to sexual selection. It is even very dubious whether he talks about "inferior" races at all — he, like at 19th century naturalists, believed some races to lack in average mental capacity relative to others, but he does not use the language of superiority or inferiority except when talking about the effects of contact between races (and even then he does it not from a moralizing point of view but from an observationary one — i.e. he has seen plenty of evidence that when "civilized" cultures show up, native cultures die out). Anyway I removed the second line; provide a citation if you think it should stay. --24.147.86.187 01:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with User 24.147 etc. Viridiflavus (talk) 16:02, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The string "inferior race" never occurs in "Descent ..". Separately, however, the word "inferior" occurs 29 times, and "race" 100 times (though only rarely near to one another). Both constructs were freely discussed at that time. At one point, Darwin quotes a contemporary as saying that "In the eternal 'struggle for existence,' it would be the inferior and LESS favoured race that had prevailed--and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults." He argues against this, though not because he believes all people to be equal; rather that a larger fraction of the most privileged children would survive (infant mortality then being very high in all countries, especially among the poor).

In another section, Darwin states that "we know [black people] admire their own colour", arguing that sexual selection for a dark skin is entirely possible. Canadian academic Peter Frost has argued something like this much more recently, with the difference that (he says) women of all races tend to prefer darker-skinned males, and men, lighter-skinned females. So, the removed sentence was not only insensitive to our 21st century mindsets; it was also incorrect.

When we look at his work through 21st century eyes, we need to be very careful not to judge things by the "mores" of our times, as Dawkins points out, in a quotation I've added to last paragraph of the article (addressing the need to temper our 21st century perspectives with an understanding of the historical context of the time). -Boppet (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Darwin befouls a lady with lecherous monkey tricks" image

There's nothing in this image which connects to "sexual selection" except by the most vague allusion. It does not illustrate the topic of sexual selection in humans. That the image has a sexual overtone might be true, but it's in no way more closely aligned with the topic of sexual selection, than it is with natural selection. It might illustrate "illustrate reaction of Darwin's comtemporaries to the notion..." as Victor falk suggests, but this article (and the section the image is in) has nothing to do with Victorian era propaganda. The image might be appropriate for an article such as Reaction to Darwin's theory, but contributes no encyclopedic information about the topic of natural selection, it's just a caricature, an adhominem attack on Darwin, with a sexual connotation. Pete.Hurd 18:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The picture's title ("Darwin befouls...") made for a rather poor caption, though it had a delightful victorianness... I've now written one that connects it to its context.--Victor falk 05:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The caption was silly, but it is about sexual selection. The cartoon is discussed in Jonathan Smith's book Charles Darwin and Victorian Visual Culture. The original caption makes a complex series of jokes about evolutionary theory, but is related to Darwin's account of blushing in the Expression of Emotions and his fascination with odd and apparently non-functional bodily features in the theory of sexual selection. He's gazing at her bustle (built-up cloth that creates exaggeratedly large buttocks), while the woman expresses outraged embarrassment at his ungentlemanly scientific curiosity. It's probably related to the long tradition of images of steatopygia in the so-called Hottentot Venus. In this case the "genteel" body imitates the "primitive" body due to the idiosyncracies of high fashion. Paul B 09:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a book for me, thx. The woman's expression is what makes the picture; she could be outraged, or embarrassed. Or, the artist, like the chauvinist patriarchal male pig he is, is like, totally clueless and couldn't care less about drawing the "irrational emotions and emotional reasons of the fairer sex".Perhaps she's just simply looking at the monkey's tail.--Victor falk 10:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

There are several other "bustle" cartoons of the time that connect it to quirky features of natural history. This one makes reference to earlier caricatures of fashion and compares it to a carapace on a beetle ("genus deformans"). This one compares it to a snail shell. Gillian Beer also writes about this. Paul B 12:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

'"The original caption makes a complex series of jokes about evolutionary theory, but is related to Darwin's account of blushing in the Expression of Emotions and his fascination with odd and apparently non-functional bodily features in the theory of sexual selection" well then, why not include this caption, because I still don't think this cartoon actually illustrates the point it's purporting to. Pete.Hurd 14:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The original caption would probably be incomprehensible to a non-specialist in Victorian culture. However, this is it: That Troubles Our Monkey Again - female descendant of Marine Ascidian: Darwin, say what you like about about man; but I wish you would leave my emotions alone.

I think even Jonathan misinterprets the jokes, but of course WP:OR precudes my saying so in the article. Darwin made much about the difficulty of determining the blush impulse because of his very gentility. He asked Thomas Woolner whether nude models blushed. This paradoxical mixture of investigative urge and polite restraint was related to Classicist ideas about the purity of the nude and its connections to bodily needs. These jokes are also apparent in the other cartoons. The essential pun/paradox is that Darwin is both ape-like and intellectal, while the woman is ultra-fashionable/genteel but also animalistic (steatobygiac). Paul B 21:02, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) Ummmm, it's still nowhere near making an illustrative example of sexual selection in humans, at least not to me. The sexual connotation is pretty clear, but the sexual selection isn't, (and as you say, it takes quite a bit of skill and background just to get to the "essential pun/paradox is that Darwin is both ape-like and intellectal, while the woman is ultra-fashionable/genteel but also animalistic" point, where we're still some distance from sexual selection). It's just not a good example ... really... surely you agree, right, it's a really bad example to pick to illustrate sexual selection in humans... Pete.Hurd 21:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Think of our readers, not one in a thousand of the people who read this will see it as an example of human sexual selection. Even if it can be interpreted in this manner by an expert on Victorians and Victorian culture, it still fails to be an accessible example for the general reader. Tim Vickers 21:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Shame on you both Pete and Tim! You're making such a low argument against Paul: "You and us may fathom the arcana of victorian sexual courtship displays, the non-wikiediting proles on the other hand....."--Victor falk 00:16, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ummm, I don't think it's such a low argument, besides, the point I'm making is "I don't fathom it", further I'm also saying "I can't fathom how you think this is a lucid example". It doesn't matter how enlightened the audience is, it's a thoroughly opaque example, to the point that it's not "an example" at all. The raison d'être of an example is to clarify an explanation of an abstract point by providing a concrete example which embodies the essence of the matter. This totally fails to do that, it makes the explanation poorer by muddying the waters. Pete.Hurd 06:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• That's the point, it's not an example, it's an illustration. There are three kind of images related to textual content:

• Explanative: graphs, diagrams, schemas, sketches, etc.
• Example: that depict "concrete example which embodies the essence of the matter".
• Illustrative: that "light up, embellish, distinguish," (OED etymology: [2]).

This picture, is mostly of the third kind, though as Paul Barlow pointed out, it is also an example of steatopygia. Furthermore, one that illustrates the unique human application of sexual selection on cultural artefacts as part of the extended phenotype --Victor falk 12:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Unique? Don't bower birds do something similar? ... dave souza, talk 13:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It was very common in Victorian culture to compare the behaviour of the male bowerbird to human courtship rituals. Ruskin writes a lot about that. Paul B 13:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely correct, unique in its magnitude only--Victor falk 13:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

<undent> Frankly, it looks to me as though it has only an indirect connection to sexual selection. Presumably the caption "Darwin befouls a lady with lecherous monkey tricks" is from Jonathan Smith's book, and to me the caption "That Troubles Our Monkey Again - female descendant of Marine Ascidian: Darwin, say what you like about about man; but I wish you would leave my emotions alone." makes more sense. Presumably it's the female speaking, "descendant of Marine Ascidian" refers to ascidians (or sea squirts). A search brought up "Science in the 19th Century Periodical". Retrieved 2007-09-22. which has Punch (magazine) in 1871 joking that "the theory of human origins enunciated in Charles R Darwin's Descent of Man, if true, would force changes in views about marriage. Observing that the more remote the relationship between a married couple, the more 'normal' and acceptable the marriage, argues that a marriage between a human and his 'poor' and distant relatives, the simians, would also be acceptable. Suggests that humans marrying the 'Larva of a Marine Ascidian' would be even more acceptable." Another 1871 article is summarised as "Notes a discussion in Parliament on the 'Principle of Selection'. Observes that this 'was not based on MR. DARWIN'S book [Darwin 1871a], which alleges that we are descended from something like the Larvae of Marine Ascidians (we Aint, with an emphatic Capital)', but related to the selection of 'officers for regimental promotion'." So that part was a standing joke at the time, and presumably the (blushing) lady looking condescendingly down her nose at the monkey bodied Darwin is referring to The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals of 1872 in telling him to stop measuring her bustle. From a misspent youth reading old bound collections of Punch it's unlikely to be an adhominem attack, and more probably gentle fun at the images conjured up by Darwin's writings. He was certainly an avid collector of all sorts of facts and anecdotes about plants, animals and people, and our title could describe it as referring to him comparing female adornments with features evolved in animals through sexual selection. By the way, some time ago I pinched the title "Reaction to Darwin's theory" for Darwin's biography during the period from 1859 to 1861, so these books aren't covered in that article. .. dave souza, talk 12:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I've no idea where the 'monkey tricks' line comes from, but it's not from Jonathan's book. Sea Squirts crop up a lot in popular Victorian natural history as varied and decorative fauna. I've tended to assume that she's a descendent of a 'Marine Ascidian' becuse she's an elaborately decorative fashionable lady, but your reference is certainly very interesting! Paul B 12:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The cartoon, BTW, was not published in Punch, but a rival journal called Fun in 1872, shortly after the publication of The Expression of the Emotions. Most of the bustle cartoons also date from this period, so it's essentailly combining two separate clichés of the time: the Darwin-as-Monkey motif and the 'Bustle-As-Curiosity-of-Natual-history' motif. Paul B 12:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

And, yes, the last sentence is supposed to be spoken by the lady to Darwin. I assume that the line "That troubles our monkey again" means "That [strange phenomenon 'the bustle'] troubles [leads to theoretical difficulties for] our monkey [Darwin/Darwinism] again ['again' because the Darwin/monkey had appeared before in Punch and Fun]. The theorestical difficulties are most likely to be the well known ones related to sexual selection, while the woman's response refers to the Expression of the Emotions (essentially 'don't presume to explain my motives for wearing this stuff'). Paul B 13:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

And the bustle/full length colourful skirt has a resemblance to a sea squirt! Now if the main points of that could be condensed into a brief caption it would be an improvement on the current one. Not so much "scandalised shock" as amused titillation. dave souza, talk 13:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• I have rewritten the caption: [3] --Victor falk 23:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

koinophilia

This article contains a great deal of material on the subject of Koinophilia. I think this is in violation of WP:NPOV#Undue weight, and perhaps WP:OR. Searching ISI WoK for the topic "Koinophilia" generates eight hits, all papers by JH Koeslag. The papers cited in the sexual selction article to support the koinophilia material are all by JH Koeslag and have been cited very few times, the vast majority of the citations are by JH Koeslag.

• KOESLAG, J.H. (1990). J. theor. Biol. 144, 15-35 (13 citations, 7 of which are by JH Koeslag)
• KOESLAG, J.H. (1995). J. theor. Biol. 177, 401-409 (3 citations, 2 of which are by JH Koeslag)
• KOESLAG, P.D., KOESLAG, J.H. (1994). J. theor. Biol. 166, 251-260 (7 citations, 5 of which are by JH Koeslag)
• KOESLAG, J.H., KOESLAG, P.D. (1993). J. Heredity 84, 396-399 (cited only once, by JH Koeslag)
• KOESLAG, J.H. (1997). J. theor. Biol. 189, 53--61 (2 citations, 1 of which is by JH Koeslag)
• KOESLAG, J.H. (2003). J. theor. Biol. 224, 399-410 (2 citations, of which 1 in a biology journal)

I've checked many of the referring papers by biology authors other than JH Koeslag, and they do not mention "koinophilia". All evidence suggests that this idea is used by no more than one person. It is clearly not an idea in the mainstream of scientific thinking on the subject of sexual selection. I've detailed some of my reservations about koinophilia article itself in the thread Talk:Koinophilia#merge_from_Averageness_proposal where JH Koeslag has also made some response. Pete.Hurd (talk) 06:47, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

First reference

I could not find the quotation "struggle between the individuals of one sex, generally the males, for the possession of the other sex" in the cited book. Rather, these exact words can be found in "The Origin of Species". Moreover, in that book Darwin does not say that Sexual selection IS the struggle, but that it DEPENDS on the struggle (when comparing to the struggle for existence of Natural Selection). I believe it would be appropriate to find a definition that can actually be cited from the "The Descent of Man", since this is the book in which Darwin better discusses this topic. Bruno.asm (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

As a result of merging the Hungarian and English Wikipedia articles, which quoted different Darwin sources (Origin ..., and Descent ...), I have reviewed both electronically. The exact quote from "Origin ..." is now in the first paragraph of the article: "... depends, not on a struggle for existence, but on a struggle between the males for possession of the females; the result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring." As this is the very first time the term was coined, I believe it important. Similar statements occur in the much longer treatment of sexual selection in "Descent ...", but "Origin ..." has precedence and is the most succinct.-Boppet (talk) 22:53, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Issues in the theory

I am far from convinced that subjectivity can be selected for. The sexual attractiveness of a trait must confer some selective advantage beyond being sexually attractive. For a trait to be directionally selected for it must confer an adaptive advantage. Fisher argues that female "preference" for a male trait can be established via genetic drift. Once established this preference can cause a positive feedback loop resulting in directional selection for an ever exaggerated, maladaptive trait. Let's use the preference for the extravagant tail of a peacock as an example.

Initially to start the process there would need to be a correlation between the trait and higher fitness. For this example we use a hypothetical species of songbird, of the order Passeriformes. Tail length in these birds is correlated with fitness such that longer tails equate to higher fitness. As females of subsequent generations favor males with longer tails, the preference for them would cause them to be conspicuously favored after many generations.

The peahen will desire to mate with the most attractive Peacock so that her progeny, if male, will be attractive to females in the next generation. Additionally the Peacock will desire to mate with a Peahen that finds him attractive so that if the progeny is female, preference for his degree of ornamentation remains present in the next generation. Since the rate of change in preference is proportioned according to the highest average degree of taste amongst females, and that females desire to best other members of the sex, it creates an additive effect in the cyclical process that will yield exponential increases, in both sexes, if unchecked.

Here is the problem. Unless drift results in preference for a peacock tail at its most extreme (as we see it today) selection will not continue to occur once the trait is no longer representative of higher fitness. If drift results in the majority of female in a population preferring a slightly larger, more extravagant tail, then yes males with genes for slightly larger, more extravagant tails will mate more than those without. Genes for this slightly exaggerated trait will become more abundant in the next generation. However, why should female preference continue to change directionally from this point forward? Selection works on individuals. Any individual female whose preference changes to an even larger tail will not confer a selective pressure on males within her population, she simply will not find a mate that lives up to her unrealistic expectations and will die a virgin. Males with the tail size preferred by the majority of females in the population will continue to find mates, females with this preference will continue to bear sons with this trait, and these sons will continue to mate with females with the preference established in the original drift event. What selective advantage could any individual possibly gain from a deviation in either tail size or preference?

I also have a problem with the language of "choice" and "preference" as opposed to recognition. A lot is assumed when we say females choose, as if females of these species have an array of males, compare them, and then choose which one is best. Although some species may actually do this, most wouldn't have the cognitive capacity/capabilities to actually choose and are simply responding to a pattern/signal.

There are also the problems of taking these traits out of their environmental context, and the assumption that these traits are maladaptive. That these supposedly sexually selected traits are maladaptive has never actually been demonstrated. Peacocks live in dark forests, it is entirely possible that their large, colorful tail is an integral part of this species' SMRS. Species can't mate if they can't find each other.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the vast majority of birds with extravagant traits (birds of paradise for example) live in forests where visibility is of particular importance in locating a mate. We don't attribute the evolution of flowers to sexual selection, rather it is the result of coevolution. Males and females also coevolve. I would argue the exaggerated male traits play a similar role in attracting females as flowers do in attracting pollinators. It all comes down to signal and recognition. In the case of flowers, the plant signals to a specific pollinator, the plant makes itself highly visible and easy to find. The pollinator recognizes the plant's signals and gets nectar/pollen, the plant gets to breed. In the case of birds the males get to breed and the females get to breed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SlashRageQuit (talk • contribs) 09:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Your criticism does not sound unreasonable to me. As such, I would expect to see it in scientific literature. Do you already have sources in mind?

Regarding the use of "choice" and "preference" terminology, this may be standard within the scientific literature, and may not be intending to convey what you suggest it does (cf. the widespread application of "selfish" and "altruistic" terminology to organisms / strategies; this is not meant to suggest that organisms have these subjective experiences). That said, even if this is the case, the text should be modified so that such a use of language is clear to readers. Speaking personally, I interpret "choice" and "preference" in this context to simply mean that an organism presented with alternatives has plumped for one based on some repeatable criterion (colour, size, etc.), with no assumptions about whether this selection process was done consciously, otherwise or what the intellectual capacity of the organism is. "Preference", for instance, could well be exercised purely automatically on the basis of some chemical marker, but it's still "preference" to me. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 11:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite busy with uni at the moment, but I do plan to find some sources to back up these criticisms some time soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.238.219 (talk) 16:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Criticism Section is weak

The "Criticism" section is weak and offers unsubstantiated claims of criticism, neither explaining the reasoning nor sources beyond mentioning "some article" and "some people". It should be removed entirely or expanded to accurately reflect these sources of criticism. Anthiety (talk) 04:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hungarian Wikipedia Page

Began merging the Hungarian and English Wikipedia articles, starting with their initial paragraphs, and resolving differences from the literature.--Boppet (talk) 03:19, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Having added several sections from the Hungarian article, I felt justified in removing the tag that merger should be undertaken. However, there is still much material in the Hungarian article that could be added. -Boppet (talk) 00:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Have continued to remove duplication and add clarity to the original English sections of the article, especially where they overlapped with the Hungarian material. Boppet (talk) 15:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Female sabotage

Since the only current discussion here focuses on my work, I'm making these comments at the top. There are three facts here:

1) My research is published in peer-reviewed journals. This makes it eligible for inclusion in Wikipedia.

2) My research provides a completely unique and novel interpretation of an existing body of knowledge. No one has ever made these insights nor performed these experiments before. This makes it important for inclusion in Wikipedia.

3) My research offers an alternative explanation, even a challenge, to more widely-held interpretations. This, with the previous two, make it imperative that any fair-minded and objective review of the field should include this research. To do otherwise opens the door to charges of partiatlity.

Lawyers say that when the facts are on your side, argue the facts; when the facts are not on your side, argue the law. The fact that you are not responding to my appeals on the merit of my work, and are instead arguing the law (i.e. rules/guidelines) suggests that you can't counter the facts. Adding to this concern is the fact that, without exception, you have incorrectly and unfairly invoked various Wikipedia guidelines, violating both their letter and spirit. Specifically you have objected to my edit under the following:

Original work. I used the word "original" on one occasion to mean novel, and you seized that word in order to incorrectly invoke a Wikipedia rule which actually says: "... your results should be published in other venues, such as peer-reviewed journals, other printed forms, open research, or respected online publications." So that rule is not applicable here.

Self-promotion. Because I am the author of the research, a charge of self-promotion has been made. The rule on self-promotion says, "Editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest. Using material you yourself have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies." This rule is also not applicable here.

Notability. I addressed that below and my comments were ignored. So I let me repeat my concerns. The rule says, "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article" (italics mine). The explanation continues further down: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list." So another rule is not applicable here.

Style. That charge was made against my edit but never explained. I asked for substantiation, and again, I was ignored.

Number of Citations. One editor, below, said flatly that my work will not be admitted until more people cite it. This goes beyond the pale; that isn't even a Wikipedia guideline.

So not only are you arguing the law, you are repeatedly and consistently arguing the law incorrectly, even creating an ad hoc rule once I had countered your other objections. All of this makes me very worried that there has been a loss of impartiality here. Please look over the preceding carefully as I am hesitant to mention this, but given the foregoing this is beginning to look like an attempt to suppress dissenting voices within this field of research. If that is not the case, I apologize in advance. Otherwise I would urge you to reconsider your objections here.--BooksXYZ (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I propose you write your own article on Female Sabotage and we can use that to decide the notability criterion. The problem is that your discussion of your valid, peer-reviewed, published research is in the midst of an article on a very deep, very broad subject and it may confuse some readers. Link your article on Female Sabotage Theory into Sexual Selection. As for self-promotion, I would refer to the second clause of the rule you cite: "...only if it is relevant and conforms to the content policies." I'm sorry, but your line of research does not appear to be relevant to the broader article on sexual selection. If you repeatedly put back your material that the community (at least this community of editors) has agreed is not relevant here then it looks like self-promotion. Finally, once again your "three facts" are not relevant. I'm truly sorry, but those things don't matter: Wikipedia is not a scientific journal.Trashbird1240 (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Joel, you're a graduate student with no solo publications to your name, and the other active editor here posts anonymously. The two of you are running roughshod over the very concepts of Wikipedia. You've grossly misapplied the Wikipedia guidelines, and when this was pointed out to you, you began making up new guidelines. You have never admitted to any of this, and have certainly never apologized or tried to make corrections. All of this makes your errors appear deliberate.

Now you have decided yourselves fit to overrule scientists, journal reviewers and editors with vastly more knowledge than you have, to determine, not only what articles are important, but whether those articles are even relevant to the field of study.

And finally you have decided that you will protect the rest us from anything that might be "confusing". The two of you have assumed the right to determine what concepts the rest of us will be permitted to read.

Wikipedia is not your personal fiefdom.--BooksXYZ (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Since when are solo publications the criterion for competence as a scientist? Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2012 (UTC) (UTC)

Wikipedia is not my personal fiefdom, nor is it yours: using Wikipedia to promote your articles is not appropriate. I'm not concerned with whether my expertise is comparable to that of the scientists who reviewed your work, since Wikipedia is not a scientific journal. It's a wiki, in other words, you put things up with the full knowledge that somebody else will edit it. This sort of discussion is completely part of the process; it's not supposed to involve personal attacks, but discussion of what's appropriate and helpful to the overall goal of the article.

You seem to be expending a lot of energy on this. I understand how you want to share your research with the world and that's great. But you're already doing that through having published your articles. There are other forums: you could write a blog, or you could write a book on the subject and freely share it with the world. The difference is that on Wikipedia there are editors. That is the whole point (as I understand it). Trashbird1240 (talk) 18:17, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Earlier discussions on this topic:

The 1998 article cited to support the Female Sabotage hypothesis paragraph, has been cited a total of two times (once incorrectly) since it was published. The 2005 paper (mentioned but not cited) does not appear in the ISI database. This appears to be a relatively non-notable piece of work given undue emphasis. Pete.Hurd 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I found the 2005 paper. Abraham JN Insect choice and floral size dimorphism: Sexual selection or natural selection? JOURNAL OF INSECT BEHAVIOR 18 (6): 743-756 NOV 2005, Times Cited: 0. It's one of the two papers to cite the 1998 article, (the other is Bertini A, David B, Cezilly F, et al. Quantification of sexual dimorphism in Asellus aquaticus (Crustacea : Isopoda) using outline approaches BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 77 (4): 523-533 DEC 2002, Times Cited: 2. Pete.Hurd 02:19, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Doh! there it is in the references section... Pete.Hurd 02:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to delete the two paragraphs relating to Joe Abrahams work. Authors are generally quoted in the article when they have been highly influential within the development of the theory (e.g. Darwin, Fisher, Hamilton, Zahavi, Lande, Rice, Rowe, Arnqvist). Their publication records typically reflect this, both in quantity, quality of the journal in which they publish, and citations to their work. Joe Abrahams is not one of these people. He has published two papers in the field, both in fairly marginal journals (current impact factors 0.7 and 1.1) that each attracted only one citation, of which at least one was completely non-specific. This body of work pales in comparison with the typical output of most PhD students. I feel it would therefore be misleading to readers of this article to include the paragraphs, because it suggests that he is on par with the other authors mentioned. The article is long enough as it is. Because this should be reason enough for deletion, I won't get started about the content of the papers, although there are quite a few concerns there too (e.g. Maynard-Smith and Kirkpatrick's personal communications in Saboteuse). Evlshout (talk) 07:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I am reinstating my work. An encyclopedia, as the name states, is the circle of education, a survey of all knowledge. It is a place that anyone can get an overview of a field. I am citing entirely original work, published in peer-reviewed journals. If Wikipedia has rules governing which scholarly works are eligible for inclusion, please cite it. Otherwise, this is a user-generated website. No one, or now few, have the right to pick and choose what they wish included. Thank you.--BooksXYZ (talk) 11:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Your work? You have a Conflict of Interest here? Wikipedia urges you to be extremely cautious about citing your own work - it is not forbidden but to be done very very carefully and without any hint of self-promotion. Forgive me if you didn't mean that, it isn't clear.

WP Rules: yes, there are plenty. The key one is to avoid 'original research' which includes 'synthesis', such as by assembling primary sources (scholarly or otherwise) to make a statement. The approved procedure is to use secondary sources, which of course will themselves cite primary ones, to describe the field neutrally: normally by paraphrase but with short quotations as appropriate. Any WP editor may object to the excessive use of primary sources.

BTW I think we should remove the Abraham material given the discussion above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Done. This material is not notable, as per this discussion. Wikipedia is not a platform for self-promotion, no matter how factually correct.Trashbird1240 (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

You all agree with my central theses: when males die, resources shift to surviving females and offspring; and pollinators place optimality concerns above floral appearances. You also agree that both of these are alternatives, even challenges, to widely-held dogma.

This is an encyclopedia, a review of all knowledge. More than that, it is the Wikipedia, the most comprehensive and collegial review of knowledge in the history of the world. In addition you are also scientists. As such, you are passionately committed to that same collegiality and comprehensiveness in the investigation, as well as the dissemination, of knowledge. And as scholars, you are also aware of the lessons of history: the dissenting viewpoint must be treated much more circumspectly than the accepted, "known" information, otherwise the critical intellectual dialogue of human progress grinds to a halt.

Concerns of self-promotion must become null once the academic community accepts one's research for peer-reviewed journals, otherwise every time we teach our students or present our research at conferences, our work becomes nothing more than base self-promotion. I also believe that the 'original' work which Wikipedia proscribes indicates work that has not been vetted by other scholars. Finally, I believe Pete Hurd confused 'notable' with 'noted', which are different things; if what I have written is a valid and unique interpretation of the existing facts, then that qualifies as notable, whether it is noted or not.

As scientists, and as Wikipedians, I would urge you to reconsider.--BooksXYZ (talk) 19:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I neither agree nor disagree with your theses. The sole question is WP:Notability. You are right that anything not cited by other people in reliable sources (such as by scholars in known journals) is considered unreliable. Wikipedia articles are meant to be constructed from secondary sources; construction from primary sources is as you know forbidden. Wikipedia is not the place for 'critical intellectual dialogue of human progress': it is a place to record the outcome of such research dialogue once it has taken place elsewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. If you will re-visit it, I think you will agree that the problem of notability does not apply here: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article" (italics mine). The explanation continues further down: "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not directly limit the content of an article or list." So I can't see how your concerns are grounds to exclude my work.

And I absolutely agree that Wikipedia is not a place for critical intellectual dialogue of human progress, but it is most definitely a chronicle of the intellectual dialogue of human progress. Moreover, like all good reference works it bends over backwards to insure that even discredited work is carefully described and recorded; witness the lengthy entries on Lamarckism and Recapitulation_theory.--BooksXYZ (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll just add that Wikipedia is not a review of all knowledge; it is a compendium of encyclopedic knowledge, which is something quite different. If someone had never read about sexual selection, they should be able to get a good idea of the major topics in the field by reading this article. Your research is very specific and takes lots of background to understand; yet another reason it should not be found in an encyclopedia, notability, style and rules about original research notwithstanding.Trashbird1240 (talk) 15:13, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, the word "encyclopedia" exactly means a review of all knowledge, the word literally means "the circle of all learning." Wikipedia agrees on this point: "An encyclopedia ... is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge." A summary of information must include cogent, contrasting viewpoints.

As to your second point, only the most rudimentary knowledge of biology is necessary to understand that male death leaves resources for surviving females and offspring, and that pollinators need food to survive, not floral appearances. I have explained these concepts to laymen on several occasions, and they immediately grasped the concepts. Concerns of notability and originality have already been taken care of; I cannot see where style is a concern.

Guys, my publications constitute valid, published, and peer-reviewed alternatives to the currently held theory; they challenge what we were all taught. I would strongly warn you not to exclude important dissenting viewpoints from this, or any review. As I noted above, to the contrary: if we understand history, and work toward the strongest possible science, we must take great pains to accommodate dissension.

Wikipedia is a community-generated reference work; we all create it. We all have a vested interest in making sure that inclusion in Wikipedia is based on solid scholarship, not favoritism.--BooksXYZ (talk) 20:25, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it is absolutely not a research platform, nor for self-publicity. We will include your work when other people have cited it sufficiently, and not before. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:36, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

With regards to intrasexual selection: potentially room to mention the evolution of the human penis shape (coronal ridge) and link to separate page. (R.g.rooney25 (talk) 19:07, 31 January 2016 (UTC))

Incoherent Babble

"A mate can be a single organism, mammal or animal."

What on earth can this possibly mean? Does there exist a mate which is not a single organism? I know that there are mates that are mammals and maybe even animals. (Though I've had suspicions about some of my mates, but I'm pretty sure they were mammals. That's criterion one with me.) Then we have the fragment, "Does not have to be multiple." WTF?! Is this vandalism or some illiterate idiocy foisted on us by an editor with nothing to say but all the time in the world to make lunatic edits at Wikipedia? Seriously, is this monkey-typing that only occasionally makes sense? I won't edit it because I have no effing idea what it means and I won't delete it because I don't want the monkeys to start flinging feces at me. Besides, if I deleted it they'd just revert and then where would we be. I'll tell ya where we'd be, right effing here, doing the same thing over and over and over again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.157.135.57 (talk) 07:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm...Well I'd say that it was simply using a sort of "oxymoron," if you will, to imply in simpler terms that it includes all organisms, animals and more specifically mammals included. I agree it does seem confusing! Aglo123 (talk) 02:34, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Darwin quotes and female passivity

Are the Darwin quotes the best way to introduce the subject in the opening? They obviously are quite significant to the development of the idea, and ought to be featured early.

But, on the other hand, my impression is that they may be misleading as to the current consensus of how this works. They seem to suggest nineteenth century received ideas about female passivity: when in fact, by being the selector rather than the selected, the females are active instigators here. We notice the male because he's trying to be noticed, and this gives rise to observational bias. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:05, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Dawkins explanation of runaway sexual selection seems wrong

In the section on exponential growth in female preference, Dawkins is said to have claimed that sexual selection happens because "genes for long tails and for preferring long tails become linked." But that doesn't seem to me to be the cause at all. What causes runaway selection is that in a population where most females prefer long tails (for example), a female who does not prefer longer tails will be more likely to have male offspring without long tales. Those male offspring will be at a disadvantage because most other females prefer long tails; they will fail to reproduce as frequently, and so they will not pass on their mother's genes. "Linking" has nothing to do with it. The Fisher quote and following analysis captures this quite clearly. Did Dawkins really misunderstand this? Or did someone misunderstand Dawkins? I don't have the book with me, but this section kind of makes him look like a fool! 141.222.65.70 (talk) 14:27, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course what Dawkins said in The Blind Watchmaker is much more complex than the few words present in the article. The argument's length makes me unable to do it justice here, but Dawkins is saying that a key factor for runaway sexual selection is that genes for males having a long tail are linked with genes for females preferring a male with a long tale—that's just a necessary step in the chain of events, all starting on the premise that in the species concerned, for some reason, females have a preference for males with long tails. To see the effect of that linkage, consider a species where the opposite applied, namely that a male with a long tail passed genes for having a long tail to his sons, and genes for preferring short tails to his daughters. It would be good if someone with the required time and skill would tweak the article. Johnuniq (talk) 01:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I guess I see the logic, though it seems a little backwards. Aren't all genes always "linked" in this loose sense except for sex-linked genes? I can't think of any other way for genes to be "unlinked" in the way you describe. The various significations of "linked" here adds to the confusion. 141.222.65.70 (talk) 16:33, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed Criticism para

I removed the following para from the article. Lengthy, only one source (a popular book Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution), and no examples of male / female dimorphisms presumably not explained by sexual selection.

Joseph Jordania proposed that in explaining brilliant body colors, various morphological additions ("ornaments"), wide range of vocalizations and strange display behaviors ("antics") in animal species Darwin neglected a very important factor of natural selection – warning display (known also as aposematism). Warning display uses virtually the same arsenal of visual, audio, olfactory and behavioral features as sexual selection. According to the principle of aposematism, in order to avoid costly physical violence and to replace violence with the ritualized forms of display, many animal species use different forms of warning display: visual signals (contrastive body colors, eyespots, body ornaments, threat display and various postures to look bigger), audio signals (hissing, growling, group vocalizations), olfactory signals (producing strong body odors, particularly when excited or scared), behavioral signals (demonstratively slow walking, aggregation in large groups, aggressive display behavior against predators and conspecific competitors). According to Jordania, most of these warning displays were incorrectly attributed by the proponents of sexual selection to the forces of sexual selection.

Memills (talk) 04:37, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Some small edits can be made throughout the article

1) Definition of sexual selection: The definition does not describe sexual selection completely, as sexual selection is not out-reproduction of an individual. It is defined more by the sexes: the definition should be more along the lines of this: Sexual selection is the selection of mates with the basis of one sex having a trait that is favored and therefore selected for, and one the other sex being the choice-maker in terms of mating.

2) 'Sexual selection sometimes generates monstrously absurd features that, in harder times, may help cause a species' extinction, as has been suggested[6] for the giant antlers of the Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) that became extinct in Pleistocene Europe.[9] However, sexual selection can also do the opposite, driving species divergence - sometimes through elaborate changes in genitalia - such that new species emerge.[10]'

This section could use some expansion in terms of describing that the effect he is describing is along the concept of sexual dimorphism and the runaway process. The reason the observed features are so exaggerated is due to sexual dimorphism: the sex which has a trait that is being selected for will undergo the change in their secondary sexual characteristics in order to attract mates. The morphed character trait that is being selected can cause them to have exaggerated features because that is what will make them for sexually attractive to the other mate. The runaway process is also important to this process because it dictates that as the other sex, generally females, become more and more selective, wanting only to mate with the more extreme phenotypes, the males with the more extreme phenotypes will be reproductively successful. By evolving the necessary secondary sexual characteristics to choose mates, the female preference also increase at an exponential rate simultaneously like the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex. As a result, exaggerated features are observed.

```` April Ou 8:31, 17 November 2014

Nothing about recombination

It is ridiculous that all focus is dedicated on how animals select a partner that in 100 kb text we cannot even afford a note on why do they do that in the first place. Ok, male expose higher mutation rate and thus expose higher variability: most of the men are defected whereas others are extremely cute. They can spread they genes as hell and best features can be conserved in women, who undergo much less mutation and exist solely to conserve best genes (best trials, aka best men). This was said in the article, albeit not pronounced clearly. Better exposition of this part would shed some light on why do we have men and women in the first place. It would be even better to say something about recombination. Recombination, aka sexual reproduction or crossover is what allows to combine best features from different individuals. It makes evolution much faster than single individual mutation. Just imagine: one guy fortunately acquires one feature, another guy acquires another feature, third guy acquires some another feature. Now, if they cannot recombine and exchange their knowledge, they have to discover everything themselves. On the other hand, “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” Bernard Shaw explains the recombination principle: The human culture has advanced so rapidly just because you could spread the knowledge for free (I am not talking about climate in Wikipedia). Imagine that you had to discover everything yourself. You would still live in a cave age. So, recombination, sexual reproduction, is extreemly powerful. The flirt affairs sucked around is not as closely crucial. Why cannot we have even a reference to the recombination? --Javalenok (talk) 14:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This is an article on a specific type of selection. The end-product of sexual selection is presumably fertilization and recombination of alleles in gametes. Recombination is a higher-order phenomenon, and therefore implied. The article does cover sexual dimorphism, and repeatedly refers to parental investment. If you would like, you could make this link between parental investment strategies more explicit and link directly to that article. Aderksen (talk) 15:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

"...As an example for this, he implicitly mentions Steatopygia in Khoisan women.[35]"

Does Darwin mention Steatopygia in footnote 35 or not? The word "implicitly' implies that Darwin didn't mention it, the word "mention" implies that he did mention it. Very entertaining, but I'm concerned that Darwin didn't mention it, but a Wikipedian editor decided it would have been what Darwin should have mentioned. I'll put a clarify tag on it.2601:7:6580:5E3:9468:C1E2:811B:9C61 (talk) 06:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

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I'm looking for some interesting lizards...

I vaguely recall that, in my college biology classes, I heard of a species of lizard with three major phenotypes for male competition for harems: aggressive, hyper-aggressive, and sneaky. IIRC, these three phenotypes have somewhat different coloration, though I don't recall what the colors were. The three phenotypes keep each other in balance by having a rock-paper-scissors relationship with each other. Hyper-aggressive males virtually always win fights with aggressive males due to the hyper-aggressive male's superior size, strength, and ferocity, and therefore steal the aggressive males' harems and integrate them into their own super-large harems. Sneaky males, being small and weak, avoid fighting at all, instead favoring stealthy cuckoldry; sneaky males easily infiltrate the territory of hyper-aggressive males, as hyper-aggressive males cannot effectively monitor their large harems, and mate with the hyper-aggressive male's females while he's completely oblivious to what's happening. However, the sneaky males' tactics fail against aggressive males, as the aggressive males maintain smaller harems and are able to maintain them more effectively; an aggressive male is highly likely to catch a sneaky male attempting to cuckold him and drive the intruder off. So, in short, aggressive males lose fights to hyper-aggressive males, sneaky males cuckold hyper-aggressive males, and aggressive males intimidate sneaky males. In this way, whenever one phenotype starts proliferating to an extreme degree, it's reined in by the phenotype that counters it, keeping any one phenotype from squeezing out the others. It's all very fascinating, but unfortunately, I can't remember the proper name for this rock-paper-scissors-selection phenomenon, nor do I remember the name of the lizard. Could someone please help me out? --Luigifan (talk) 02:34, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science. Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

You're thinking about the side-blotched lizards. http://149.156.165.8/ekol-ewol/Sinervo%20&%20Lively%201996%20-%20rock-paper-scissors.pdf --Kayleebusniuk (talk) 12:29, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

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Female intrasexual competition

Female intrasexual competition is a potential candidate for merging with this article (which already has a section titled "Male intrasexual competition"). That article has a list of sources, however parts of it is also human-centric which doesn't seem fitting here. —Srid<sup>🍁</sup> 21:33, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

On second thought, this may not be a proper candidate for a merger due to being human-centric. That said however this article could make use of a 'Female intrasexual competition' section that cites reliable sources (example: [4]). —Srid<sup>🍁</sup> 21:37, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Well yes. The human-centricity is a problem, as I said in my edit comment. Much more serious is the fact that the FIC article doesn't seem to be evolutionary biology as currently presented, so a merge would be inappropriate. The current SS article does in fact discuss the female aspect but with good secondary sources this side of the article could be expanded. The Rosvall article is a suitable review (if a bit old now) and is appropriately skeptical of some of the glossier claims. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Given the current size of that article and that it's focused on humans, I'm not seeing that a merge is a good idea. It is worth seeing just how much the literature focuses on female intrasexual competition with regard to non-human animals. Some non-human and human material can be covered here at the Sexual selection article, and include a hatnote pointing to the Female intrasexual competition article. The title of the Female intrasexual competition article could be changed to "Human female intrasexual competition" until its expanded to include non-human animal material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:15, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

As it stands now, the female intrasexual article has enough to stand on its own feet without the merging, I must concur. Also, that is solely about humans, while this article is about both human and non-human creatures, and we don't want to add a big block of material that will be too big for a human section when it can have its own page. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 05:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

This section of the sexual selection talk page is linked to by the female intrasexual selection talk page that asks why there is no male intrasexual selection article, as though it justifies the absence of such an article. This whole subject is of profound importance and seems to be completely muddled in Wikipedia. Jim Bowery (talk) 13:44, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Categories

There has been some confusion about this article's subject area. The topic is purely biological - in fact, evolutionary biology - and has no connection to issues of gender equality and human cultural developments: we have plenty of articles on those subjects. Therefore, there is no need in this article for categories relating to purely human areas; indeed, any such categorisation or discussion of those matters is off-topic for this article in evolutionary biology. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Sexual selection by males?

Most of the content of this article seems to be working from the assumption that sexual selection only works in one direction, with females selecting for traits in males. While this is almost always the case, there seem to be a number of exceptions where it is the males doing the choosing and the female traits that are being selected for. This is hinted at in the 'Sexual dimorphism' section where it mentions the reversal of normal roles in phalaropes. The intro section is good, in that it doesn't restrict the phenomenon to female selection, but most of the rest of the article implies that it only works in this direction.

For some info about possible exceptions: https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/64/3/321/4992021

I think it might be good to include some additional information in the article indicating that it is possible for sexual selection to work on female traits. (unsigned comments added by User:Jabowery on 20 July 2020‎)

Use of primary sources

Quite a bit of this article is composed of chunks of elaborate detail, each supported by a single primary source (— you know the type of thing, "Flywheel, Quicktalk and Waffler 2021 hypothesize that adolescent male lesser-spotted marsh newts exemplify intralocus sexual conflict..."). This gives an impression of fullness and (for the gullible) of reliable citation, while actually leaving the article in a sorry state, unbalanced, incomplete, confusing, and cluttered, and not setting out the main points of the topic. Some of this has been caused by SPA-type editors (possibly students) who have edited one aspect, briefly, and vanished.

What is required is for the article to give an overview of the field, which is enormous, from secondary sources such as review articles. As a principle for this kind of article (technical, on a huge field, with over a century of research history), we should not be citing any primary sources unless these are supported by secondary sources, i.e. we mention Darwin, Fisher, Zahavi because they've been cited by thousands of others (i.e. they've founded the field), and we cite review articles which cite them.

All biology editors who notice anyone adding chunks of primary material should feel free to ask for secondary sources, immediately warn the primary-cite-and-run guys that their material will be removed unless so cited, and if need be to revert. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:33, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

False attribution to to Wallace instead of just Darwin

I just made an edit to a line that said the idea was first articulate by Darwin and Wallace, which (happily) has a linked source. The source in fact proves that Darwin, not Wallace, discussed sexual selection. See Page 6 of http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1858_species_F350.pdf The source was mistakenly attributed to "Darwin & Wallace" together as if it was a co-authored paper, but the source is not a co-authored paper. The overall source is a published compendium of several sources (excerpts and letters), with clear separation between what is Darwin and what is Wallace. (Adding to the confusion, the original publishing treated it like a joint single treatise by Darwin and Wallace, but that's not what the sources were.) The sexual selection part is entirely Darwin, and the idea is not mentioned in the parts authored by Wallace. So, my correction is supported by the historical source. I noticed the error because there are extensive letters between Darwin and Wallace where it's comically clear that Wallace did not understand sexual selection. And Wallace opposed the idea, and that opposition helped to ruin their relationship. So for all these reasons, it cannot and should not be attributed to Wallace.RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok, the citation indeed needs updating. I'll do that now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Various definitions of sexual selection

I have noticed that this article treats the definition in the lead as the only definition when are other definitions.

Like [this source] states. One widely accepted definition is that “sexual selection is the differences in reproduction that arise from variation among individuals in traits that affect success in competition over mates and fertilizations”.CycoMa (talk) 23:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Given that it's a single concept that has stood up robustly for over 160 years already, it's not surprising there should be slightly different formulations; these actually seem perfectly compatible, so there's no great issue. If there were conflicting definitions then we'd need to explain the argument, but that's not the situation here; as the quote says, biologists widely agree on what sexual selection is; any disagreement is about its importance. I see no reason not to mention the Kokko & Jennions formulation in the article, so I'll see about the wording and cite it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)