The Poetry of Reality with Richard Dawkins
@poetryofreality·205K subscribers·301 videos
Nature’s Mating Dance: Do Females Prefer Honest Males?
Posted
April 30, 2024
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32,953
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April 30, 2024
32,953
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32:46Now PlayingI will be on tour of North America, UK & EU talking about my latest book, religion, life on earth and beyond. I will be joined on stage by a range of friends and foes on stage. The events will include a Q&A and a limited meetandgreet. You can get your tickets here
#richarddawkins #richarddawkinstour
Why are there two sexes, and how is the balance between the two maintained in evolution? The riddle is one that baffled Chales Darwin. He explicitly left it for later generations. It was eventually solved, with typical brilliance, by the great Ronald Fisher.
The fundamental sexual inequality is an economic one. Eggs are hugely larger than sperm. From this much follows. Why do peacocks have such a ridiculously large, ornamental “tail”, when it obviouly must put them in danger? Do females go for male beauty for beauty’s sake (as Darwin thought, and Fisher explained)? Or are males advertising some useful quality (as AlfredWallace, Darwin's co-discoverer of natural selection, insisted). Is the peacock’s tail favoured in spite of being a handicap? Or could it be favoured precisely becuse it is a costly handicap? Does it have to be costly as a certificate of honesty? Do females only go for honest males?
This is a talk I gave on a ship crusing the Galapagos archipelago.
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I will be on tour of North America, UK & EU talking about my latest book, religion, life on earth and beyond. I will be joined on stage by a range of friends and foes on stage. The events will include a Q&A and a limited meetandgreet. You can get your tickets here
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