Sexual Selection In Human Evolution
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is an element of his theory of natural selection, the process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. However, in general, when considering the forces that produced any specific trait, one must bear in mind pleiotropy, whereby genes have more than one effect. In the words of Richard Dawkins:
- "When you notice a characteristic of an animal and ask what its Darwinian survival value is, you may be asking the wrong question. It could be that the characteristic you have picked out is not the one that matters. It may have "come along for the ride", dragged along in evolution by some other characteristic to which it is pleiotropically linked."
Read more about Sexual Selection In Human Evolution: Basics, Darwin's Hypothesis, Sexual Dimorphism, Culture, Phenotype, Controversies, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words selection, human and/or evolution:
“Every writer is necessarily a critic—that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on.... The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg—nine-tenths of him is under water.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)
“Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)