Birds, Sex and Beauty: Charles Darwin’s extraordinary implications of the most strange idea of Darwin Matte ridley 4 Estate (2025)
At 4 am on April 1, Science Writer Matt Ridley was hurrying Frosty Penin Hills in England, who was eager to catch the peculiar pre-don sexual intercourse of Black Gowz ((Lyrus tetricsMale collects on an infallible patch of the ground until the end, where in small hours, they themselves are known as a lake in a hierarchy. Birds that beat other people-secure small areas in the center of the lake, as well as a ‘Ruo-Kinging’ calls through–quarrels or tails. Losers settled for real estate.
As explain in the redley Birds, sex and beautifulY, he has been watching Grause on this patch of land for years. Through frequent studies, he expects to better understand his unusual behavior. This desire to learn through observation runs during your book, as the author combines his love of natural history with mash-ups of popular science and travel writing to detect sexual selection in birds.
How development works, a new vision for this is longer than a long time
For Black Gouse, a significant few days of weeks are built in a week when women patrol the lake and choose a partner – usually near the center. But the success of a man comes to a cost: maintaining his tenure is also a challenge for the worthy. For more than one or two years before overtaking exhaustion.
Evolutionary biologists have long understood that some symptoms are associated with breeding, and others are surviving – and both are often on obstacles. For example, peacock tail (Pavo christatus) Pic attracts, but this attractive jewelery makes him unsafe for prediction. The hanging behavior of Black Gauz protects breeding, but is energetically expensive.
Ridley is interested in how such characteristics develop. Does really, he asks, are these male symptoms signaling, and what are women choosing?
Charles Darwin was the first to clarify these questions. He argued that the exaggerated characteristics of men and the tendency of women inherited the tendency to choose the most influential men. His critics disputed the idea that women were choosing colleagues, instead arguing that the men had sexual intercourse, based on which the best dance or brightest tail.
Good gene or sexy son?
In 1930, Ronald Fisher (father of mathematical evolutionary biology) showed through mathematical models how inherited female choice and inherited men can generate sexually selected characters ‘fugitive selection’ simultaneously. When only a handful of ‘attractive’ men secure all matings – as it is for black grause – the preference of females for exaggerated symptoms leads to the symptoms that become evergreen, even if the cost of survival for men, for men. Over time, these preferences and symptoms are co-developed, genetically correlated.
This phenomenon can lead to striking facilities. Male ribbon-telted astrastapia tail (Astrapia Mayari), For example, may be longer than one meter – more than three times the length of your body. It is not easy to fly with such a long streammer drag.
Many male birds, such as Victoria’s riflebard (Pieloris Victoria), ‘Dance’ to woo women.Credit: Getty
Fisher argued that women choose ‘showy male’ to increase the opportunity that they have ‘sexy sons’, who will be asked simultaneously after the mates, and therefore pass on their genes. But does a showy man make a good friend? In 1975, evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahvi proposed the Handicap theory: by a fitness cost sports symptoms, men are indicating women women that they can squand resources to increase resources to show something, indicating their money to a rich person by buying many sharp cars, despite being capable of being able to only one.
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The barrier theory remains controversial. In 1982, evolutionary biologists Bill Hamilton and Marleen Zuk proposed an alternative hypothesis – men symptoms that women choose reflect men’s ability to pass on their genes. Their jewelry is indicating the ability to fight infection or avoid predators. The evidence that supports this ‘good gene’ hypothesis is increasing, which Ridley explains, does not refute Fisher’s arguments.
Many scientists have tried to prove their career in these hypotheses. But the problem with the debate is that not a single driver of sexual selection can be. In some cases, the handicap theory may choose the fugitive; In others, it can be a good gene. The discovery of the same reason flies in front of the variety of nature that celebrates the redle.
