Image via WikipediaDear Readers,I found this in some old notes from a past, time-normal me. Thought you might enjoy it, if you're looking for something to read on a slow Sunday. I was less reserved in my wording back then.
It concerns the difference between Sexual Selection (where evolution is driven by arbitrary things that males or females happen to find attractive) vs. Natural Selection (where the selected traits are determined by their ability to help you survive the environment around you).
A classic example of Sexual Selection would be birdsong. Females are attracted to the songs of male birds, but to sing is actually quite risky for the male as it alerts predators to their location. Your scientists think it to have evolved because it helps the males get noticed, which has a slight net benefit over how much it helps them get eaten.
Text below the cut.
Always,
Dr. John Skylar
Chairman Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople
Image via Wikipedia With sexual selection, I think it's sort of an end-game scenario; your species is tightened into its niche, it's hard to stand out, so you spend a couple extra metabolic points on making your ass look like an explosion at a combination fireworks and mood ring factory. If you happen to be a peacock, I hear that works. Sure, it makes you more noticeable to predators, but you spend some points on upping your running away skills and you're set.Sure, it's not actually "points" and I'm describing several generations of selection on spontaneous variations, but it remains that sexually selected traits usually indicate overall fitness, to set apart those who can go the extra mile with survival. There are still defective individuals that die to whatever happens to eat them, but the average folks evolve sexually selected traits to show that they've got such an edge when it comes to basics that they can start to get a little ostentatious. Hey, big spender.
Things like that refine species, but don't shape them. The human patella didn't develop to let us run ten miles because girls thought that was hot. It developed because people were hungry, and antelope run fast but they don't run far. Sex selection's interesting, but it's natural selection that gets us down from the trees and into art studios and science labs. And that's why I love it.
Really, I think that's one of the things that makes us a powerful species. We can put the sex side of life away for a minute to make something cool, and not because we want to get laid, but because it's just a damn cool thing to make. It happens to get us laid, too, but that's a fringe benefit.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I wanted to make the point that something I'd personally like to see a lot of in fiction is the interaction between artificial, sexual, and natural selection now that we actually know how to manipulate these things on a genetic level. Does the girl date the guy who looks hot, or does she go more exotic? Maybe she logs on to a website for the sperm bank, goes through a quick "character creator," where she picks the genes she wants, mails off an egg and by the end of the week she's fertilized with the monstrosity she created.
Wouldn't that be grand?
No comments:
Post a Comment