A Potted History
Darwin (1871, 1874) realised that the preponderance of unbiased sex ratios posed a problem for his theory of natural selection. He made a start at developing possible explanations, but was unsatisfied and left the problem for future generations. This problem was solved decisively by Fisher (1930), who showed that selection for an unbiased sex ratio follows from the fact each offspring has a mother and father, and so males and females make equal genetic contributions to the next generation. Importantly, Fisher clarified the frequency dependent nature of selection on sex allocation that is at the centre of all subsequent developments.
Read more about this topic: Sex Allocation
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“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)