1. Comment #52934 by toomanytribbles on June 28, 2007 at 2:47 pm

... patiently waiting for QT. thanks for already thinking of the alternative source.

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2. Comment #52935 by doglived on June 28, 2007 at 2:51 pm

"the sheer unfairness of some of the males getting all of the action and other males getting none is - remarkable"

"90% percent of the males never do any copulating" Certainly wouldn't want to be a California Elephant seal!

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3. Comment #52945 by Machinus on June 28, 2007 at 4:10 pm

I have a quick question for Richard!

You said that the females' taste in males would itself be subject to natural selection. Doesn't it follow from this that if the particular attributes being used to affect mating success were NOT indicative of anything useful, that the offspring of those females would be less viable, and that the gene pool would eventually eliminate any unnecessary tastes from females during mating?

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4. Comment #52946 by AJ Rae on June 28, 2007 at 4:19 pm

You said that the females' taste in males would itself be subject to natural selection. Doesn't it follow from this that if the particular attributes being used to affect mating success were NOT indicative of anything useful, that the offspring of those females would be less viable, and that the gene pool would eventually eliminate any unnecessary tastes from females during mating?

Having attributes that positively affect mating success would be very useful. The offspring might be less viable in terms of survival, but in terms of passing on their genes, they might be much fitter. This is my interpretation of the video.

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5. Comment #52971 by roach on June 28, 2007 at 8:21 pm

I'm really liking these past three vids. It's great to see Richard et al talking about criticizing religion and championing reason but these videos are a fascinating (especially for a layperson like myself). Thanks for posting them.

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6. Comment #52979 by Ohnhai on June 28, 2007 at 10:23 pm

I agree. It's nice to see Richard back on his home turf. He is an evolutionary biologist after all, it nice to hear him on these subjects. Which is, thanks to 'growing up in the universe', how I first became aware of him in the first place.

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7. Comment #52989 by Machinus on June 28, 2007 at 11:58 pm

Having attributes that positively affect mating success would be very useful. The offspring might be less viable in terms of survival, but in terms of passing on their genes, they might be much fitter. This is my interpretation of the video.

I don't believe that successful mating technique can be a substitute for survivability itself. If the traits sacrifice viability for this effect, fewer of them would reach the stage of mating to begin with, and natural selection would make irrelevant the characteristics of sexual selection.

Right?

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8. Comment #52996 by CDG on June 29, 2007 at 12:40 am

"the sheer unfairness of some of the males getting all of the action and other males getting none is - remarkable"

"90% percent of the males never do any copulating"

Are you sure he wasn't talking about most muslim countries?

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9. Comment #53054 by AJ Rae on June 29, 2007 at 6:03 am

I don't believe that successful mating technique can be a substitute for survivability itself. If the traits sacrifice viability for this effect, fewer of them would reach the stage of mating to begin with, and natural selection would make irrelevant the characteristics of sexual selection.

If the pressure to mate is greater than the pressure to evade a predator, then natural selection would not make it irrelevant. As with the guppy pool example in the video.

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10. Comment #53140 by Enlightenme.. on June 29, 2007 at 4:02 pm

He lays into S.J.G again there at the the end :)

Is this just 'cos he 'sold out' or something with the Rocks of ages book? (I must find time to read some of his books sometime) I'm gonna wiki punctured evo to find out what it means right now anyway. I know it can't be as simple as 'accidental mass extinctions create a new space'?

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11. Comment #53146 by chadcross on June 29, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Thanks for posting this. It is a good break from the religious stuff. I love that too but this is very interesting.

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12. Comment #53149 by Enlightenme.. on June 29, 2007 at 4:33 pm

Well, so far I've found out it was punctured equalibrium, not punctured evolution!

I'm new to this learning game, after 30 yrs as an anglican!

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13. Comment #53156 by seals on June 29, 2007 at 5:55 pm

Great videos, thanks, wishful thinking I know but I almost feel like I was on that trip. Even the picture behind RD's head, of what looks like rock formations and waves crashing on a shoreline (or is it clouds in the sky?) has become so familiar, I could swear I'd seen it before. Poor Richard... always having to work to deadlines, like 1 minute for Q&A - what's to follow that could be more important than this?

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14. Comment #53160 by KRKBAB on June 29, 2007 at 7:40 pm

Kind of nice to hear R.D.s 29 minute lecture on sex ratio and evolution. However, I'm finding the majority of the questionner's comments to be pretty superficial. The first question is about the possible effects of global warming and temperature on the sex ratio?! Maybe a topically interesting subject, but it really had nothing to do with what R.D. had been talking about. Wasn't he getting the gist of what the lecture was about. I guess the main thing is to get to see R.D. speaking on Darwinism/Evolution (to our benefit) and to pretty much ignore the Q & A afterwards. Another of R.D.s talents seems to be to follow a lame question or comment with a very interesting and informative response. Science lectures are a much needed break from hearing R.D. take on the theists. Rock-on Dawkins!

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15. Comment #53161 by Dr Benway on June 29, 2007 at 8:33 pm

Brilliant. Thanks.

I'd like to hear a similar talk about how natural selection might explain senescence, or the absolute life span of various species. For humans, that absolute is around 110-120 years. Note this is not the same thing as life expectancy, which varies greatly depending upon a number of environmental and behavioral factors.

As a student many years ago, I remember one explanation for why certain insects have brief lives and others hang around longer: deliciousness. Mayflies are apparenty quite tasty. If too many adult mayflies who have already reproduced are flying around, more birds will eat them, and so more birds will learn how good that brand of bug tastes. Hence the short lifespan for mayflies.

Monarch butterflies taste awful apparently. Adult monarchs who have already reproduced can help their offspring by serving as negative advertising to would-be predators. Monarchs live several months, in comparison to the several hours of the mayfly.

Given that female humans stop being fertile in their 30s, why such a long life span? How does natural selection account for the presence of so many old timers among us? Are grandparents somehow necessary for the species?

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16. Comment #53163 by roach on June 29, 2007 at 9:33 pm

I'd like to learn the (or an) answer to Dr Benway's question. But female humans become infertile in their 30's? I thought menopause occured a couple decades later than that on average?

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17. Comment #53164 by Dr Benway on June 29, 2007 at 9:52 pm

Egg quality worsens exponentially in the mid 30s. Only a small percentage of women have babies in their 40s, although menopause hits in the early 50s.

click here

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18. Comment #53174 by Enlightenme.. on June 30, 2007 at 1:04 am

^ Apart from actual infertility, we are also conscious beings, who know there's a ticking clock for increasing risk toward Down's syndrome.

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19. Comment #53193 by roach on June 30, 2007 at 3:27 am

Yeah I knew about the risk of Down's after 40. Thanks for the replies and the link.

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20. Comment #53198 by seals on June 30, 2007 at 4:10 am

Given that female humans stop being fertile in their 30s, why such a long life span? How does natural selection account for the presence of so many old timers among us? Are grandparents somehow necessary for the species?

I think this is what Dawkins tentatively explains in The Selfish Gene, Battle of the generations (ch 8) - with age, women in the natural state become less efficient at bringing up children, and the existence of a "grandchild altruism" gene, which would prosper when grandchildren have a greater expectation of life than children. So genes for becoming infertile in middle age become more numerous. Of course, it's way better explained in the book.

Paradoxically, as the age for menopause approaches, it's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security!

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21. Comment #53232 by coretemprising on June 30, 2007 at 7:43 am

I gave up fertility (gladly) in my early 50s. Had a child at 42--he's perfect, btw, although neither planned for or against, if you know what I mean. I don't recommend it, though. Dealing with adolescence in one's 50s is a serious drag...

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22. Comment #53267 by windfall on June 30, 2007 at 12:51 pm

Jared Diamond gives a nice explanation of the various longevities of different species in his first book 'The Third Chimpanzee'. The key is the expense of investment in repairing the body. It's something like calculating the cost of an insurance policy. What are the chances that the average organism in the species will sustain serious damage before reproducing? How long till the species is able to reproduce? How costly are the various repairs?

The basic insight is that the species is optimized through natural selection to live long enough to reproduce and care for the offspring until they are ready to reproduce. There is no maximization, only optimization. That bodies continue to function for years after reproduction and caring for offspring in humans and other animals is just a matter of the systems selected for (according to the cost-effective investment based on the above considerations) lasting for longer as they wear down. Natural selection doesn't really care what happens to the parents' bodies after ones offspring are ready to reproduce on their own. From then on out, the body just breaks down quickly or slowly, depending on how it's been invested in.

Diamond uses the excellent example of car repair. I highly recommend his book. The relevant chapter here is chapter 7 'Why Do We Grow Old and Die?'.

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23. Comment #53322 by stackoturtles on June 30, 2007 at 7:53 pm

As a retired high school and part-time college biology teacher for 36 years, one of the concepts that I struggled with was how all of the mildly positive selective traits competed successfully with strongly negative selective traits, since natural selection acts upon the entire genome of each individual.
For example, say you have a trait whose selective advantage is somewhere in the neighborhood of 51 to 55% over the alternatives and one trait whose selective disadvantage is overwhelming, like a genetic disease or susceptibility to diseases.
If they are inherited on the same chromosome and they are in close proximity to each other so that crossing over is minimized, they will almost always be inherited together and the slightly advantageous gene will be swamped by the likelihood that the individual may not live long enough to reproduce.
Have the mathematical models been written and computer simulations run to test the interactions of genes of varying selectivity? If so, can someone direct me to references to them. I'm guessing they probably have been, but I would like to get this clear in my mind. Richard has probably covered this at some point, but I can't recall it. Thanks!

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24. Comment #53323 by stackoturtles on June 30, 2007 at 8:01 pm

My post above just raised another question. If it is true that mildly favorable genes are at a disadvantage when in close proximity to strongly unfavorable genes, there should be selective value in the mildly favorable genes being as far away from
unfavorable ones as possible. Has this been studied?

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25. Comment #53530 by miknarf on July 1, 2007 at 11:58 pm

He is such a brilliant biologist it is a shame that he must spend so much time discussing religion, and talking with religious fanatics. He is a good man for taking up the burden.

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26. Comment #53576 by Squirrel on July 2, 2007 at 5:14 am

Stackoturtles, I suspect you might find information on that in Maynard Smith's book Evolutionary Genetics.

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27. Comment #54701 by Brian Maximus on July 8, 2007 at 2:59 pm

In good conditions like for the paradise bird, surviving is not the problem they have enough food. In this case the sexual selection goes extreme.

If you compare this to business if you have a good product, but no advertisement you will go belly up. When it comes to mating there is no time for the male to show all the survival skills so the female have to look for special traits. If you have something that is bigger/extreme it is an effective measuring stick. Most animals notes differences and show interest to it, so a tip to get the girls is to stand out of the crowd. ;-)

One thing to remember is that the systems work on a statistic sense; this means that the average over time is the key. The sexual selection will be balanced out with natural selection.

I think I heard that someone thought that the Saber-toothed cat was extinct becauss of this. But what do I know.

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28. Comment #56813 by Riley on July 17, 2007 at 11:41 am

"Sex Ratio Theory and Sexual Selection"
Richard Dawkins: "accident of course plays an enormous role in the kinds of animals that populate the earth ... we probably wouldn't be here if the third dinosaur to the left hadn't sneezed at a particular time... we are here by the thinnest threads of luck".

Isn't this an absurd thing to say? One dinosaur sneeze?!?!

How do the tiny event ripples emanating from an infinitesimally small and common occurrence (like a sneeze) emerge and compute with any significance within the massive ocean of events driving evolution? Even in the case of a large and rare event like an asteroid impact, aren't the still larger and relentlessly persistent forces that have underpinned the determination of fitness and survival for trillions of years still intact ? (e.g. physical laws, chemistry, the existence of light waves, the existence of liquid water on earth, etc) and wont they reproduce (haven't they already reproduced) essentially the same adaptations over and over again? (e.g. photosynthesis, eyes, ears, etc).

I'm having trouble understanding the science of this topic and in this rare case Dawkins is making it more difficult for me to understand and I think probably making it more difficult for the public in general. The way that Dawkins characterizes the "enormous role" accident plays in evolution makes his lambasting of Ted Haggard in "Root of All Evil?" seem a bit unfair:

"Root of All Evil?"
Ted Haggard: Sometimes it's hard for a human being to study the ear, or study the eye, and think that happened by accident.

Richard Dawkins: I beg your pardon, did you say by accident?

Ted Haggard: Yeah.

Richard Dawkins: What do you mean, by accident?

Ted Haggard: That the eye just formed itself somehow.

Richard Dawkins: Who says it did?

Ted Haggard: Well, some evolutionists say it did.

Richard Dawkins: Not a single one that I've ever met.

"Sex Ratio Theory and Sexual Selection"
Richard Dawkins: "accident of course plays an enormous role ... we are here by the thinnest threads of luck".

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29. Comment #57219 by ssss on July 18, 2007 at 3:17 pm

I love listening to Dr. Dawkins lecture.

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30. Comment #57222 by ssss on July 18, 2007 at 3:20 pm

in response to 28, he's giving ted haggard a hard time for saying the eye just magically formed itself somehow. obviously some chance played a part but it didn't just poof into the world by accident.

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31. Comment #57655 by Riley on July 20, 2007 at 12:48 pm

sss wrote: obviously some chance played a part but it didn't just poof into the world by accident.

In the context of that "Root of all Evil?" conversation, I think it's hard not to see that: "accident" and "formed by itself" was meant by Haggard to mean roughly: "formed without intelligent intervention and/or help from outside the realm of nature".

Dawkins' angry response to that comment creates the impression that he thought the comment was not only mistaken, but wildly and unforgivably off the mark. I don't think it was wildly off the mark, in fact it seems like a fairly reasonable description of evolution to me: it happened by accident and without intelligent intervention. The process of evolution is not random - but it is accidental (i.e. there's no intention to it).

Am I wrong?

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32. Comment #57674 by Donald on July 20, 2007 at 2:12 pm

In the context of that "Root of all Evil?" conversation, I think it's hard not to see that: "accident" and "formed by itself" was meant by Haggard to mean roughly: "formed without intelligent intervention and/or help from outside the realm of nature".

Dawkins' angry response to that comment creates the impression that he thought the comment was not only mistaken, but wildly and unforgivably off the mark. I don't think it was wildly off the mark, in fact it seems like a fairly reasonable statement to me.

Haggard meant (in part) what you say, but he was also strongly implying "came together as a complete entity, from parts that weren't eyes". There are two things terribly wrong with this from a point of view of understanding evolution. One is the lack of appreciation of the large number of intermediate forms (one for each tiny genetic improvement) between "no eye" and "modern mammalian eye". The other is the lack of understanding of the process of "natural selection" which is the opposite of "by accident".

Dawkins was exactly right to pounce on the "by accident" terminology, because it carries disastrous consequences for the understanding of evolution by non-scientific audiences who will undoubtedly get the wrong idea from Haggard's terminology. Dawkins was not only living up to his professional title "professor of public understanding of science" - but doing a superb job of it.

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33. Comment #57684 by Donald on July 20, 2007 at 2:39 pm

Richard Dawkins: "accident of course plays an enormous role in the kinds of animals that populate the earth ... we probably wouldn't be here if the third dinosaur to the left hadn't sneezed at a particular time... we are here by the thinnest threads of luck".

Isn't this an absurd thing to say? One dinosaur sneeze?!?!

How do the tiny event ripples emanating from an infinitesimally small and common occurrence (like a sneeze) emerge and compute with any significance within the massive ocean of events driving evolution?

I agree with you that the emphasis on accident, and the choice of dinosaur sneeze, are not Dawkins at his best. He meant, of course, that the chance of you or I, in all our genetic detail and precisely as we exist today, are the result of accidental events as well as natural selection, and so, that although creatures similar to us were highly likely, the exact events leading to precisely us, were very unlikely.

I agree with you that the playing up of "accident" in relation to our individual existence, is in great danger of being confused with his downplaying of "accident" in the process of evolution of complex structures.

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34. Comment #58648 by Enlightenme.. on July 25, 2007 at 3:31 pm

^ It's simply in the same sense as;

If Hitler didn't take on the Russians, we would all be speaking German now (of course *we* wouldn't exist).

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35. Comment #59123 by Riley on July 27, 2007 at 1:09 pm

The parameters of natural selection are at their core the function of constants and relative constants of our world such as the earth's distance from the sun, the earth's mass and density (its gravity), the sun's light and intensity, chemical/physical laws, and the mathematical laws governing sex ratios, to name a few. These constants determine what forms of life exist on earth, and as long as those constants are in effect, life should tend to converge on the same forms again and again. Shouldn't they?


If this is true, then given enough time in this environment why shouldn't we expect that the eventual emergence of life behaving and looking somewhat like ourselves is highly likely?

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36. Comment #90277 by Styrer- on November 23, 2007 at 10:54 pm

Trying to follow the sophisticated and subtle arguments Dawkins makes here (and I wonder how very much more takes place in his head, unpublished, simply when he's on the loo or at the bus stop) is a humbling pleasure.

How glad I am (as we all probably are) that Dawkins is prepared to lend to us his intellectual inquiry beyond his immediate field of evolutionary biology to the arguably wider issues of reason V faith we simply have to deal with.

Bloody marvellous.

Styrer

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