That's right, Conglomerate, we've got a new flag. In fact, it's a conglomeration of flags. Isn't that adorable?
Time for some unrelated tidbits of semi-interesting stuff:
1. Miscellaneous Correlation Theory
The attractiveness of future generations is directly proportional to the male/female ratio of the current generation.
Explanation:
More males than females in a population means males are going to be in greater competition with each other, giving females greater choice in a mate. Greater choice for females means more men toward the "ugly end of the spectrum" are going to be left out, or crowded out by the relatively more desperate good looking men.
On the flip side, more females than males in a population doesn't necessarily lead to a similar outcome. Since the choice to have children lies with the female, women on the "ugly side of the spectrum" that would otherwise be crowded out of the dating market can still reproduce via artificial insemination, unfaithful males, etc.
So, if there are more men than women, only the better looking men will be able reproduce, but with all "types" of women. If there are more women than men, the better looking women will reproduce with all "types" of men, but the not-so-good-looking women will (can) reproduce by other means. And these other means don't discriminate by appearance as much as the others...
So long story short:
If our generation had significantly more men than women, we'd naturally end up with relatively better looking (more attractive in all important areas, really) children.
...Though I could be missing something important... Anyone see a flaw here?
2. Interesting Psychology
From Wikipedia:
"According to Self-perception theory, people undergo overjustification effect because by observing what they do and why they did it, the extrinsic motivation appears to be the main cause and so undermines their intrinsic motivation."
In other words, we determine our attitudes by trying to watch ourselves act from an outside perspective and rationalizing what acting implied, and doing this obfuscates the real, initial reason for the act.
Just yet another theory that makes you wonder why you really do believe the things you believe, ya know?
3. Miscellaneous Behavioral Econ/Psychology Study
From the abstract of this paper:
"In 4 studies with political and economic decision-making scenarios, it was consistently found that individuals with depleted self-regulation resources exhibited a stronger tendency for confirmatory information processing than did individuals with nondepleted self-regulation resources,"
and
"individuals with depleted self-regulation resources experienced increased levels of commitment to their own standpoint, which resulted in increased confirmatory information processing."
So what does this mean?
It means, apparently, that people with more confidence are able to be more objective. People with lower confidence (lower self-esteem, if you will...) are more stubborn. (Curtsy to Overcoming Bias for translating the psychobabble.)
If the person you're arguing with is incredibly stubborn and unable to accept your perspective in the argument, it's possible they just have low self-confidence. Maybe. Or, possibly, maybe you do.
Since I finally mentioned "curtsy," I'll give a Curtsy to our rarely-seen-these-days friend Chris Jeffords for coming up with the idea of saying "curtsy." I highly recommend that everyone adopt it immediately.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Miscellany
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4 comments:
1. Could this be applied to any gene-linked trait? Male/female ratio is proportional to the next generation's intelligence? Disease resistance? I imagine it would also put a much higher selection pressure on sexual signaling (i.e. peacock's tail - not practically useful for anything except mate selection). Also, sex-linked traits (on the Y chromosome) would benefit far more, meaning men would get genetically "fitter" faster than women in such a scenario. Does this effect have a mechanism for evening itself out, or would it snowball out of control?
2. See "Phantoms in the Brain" by V.S. Ramachandran. This effect is especially pronounced in split brain patients, whose left and right hemispheres have been disconnected. Experimenters give instructions in one side of the visual field (i.e. 'laugh') which causes one side of the brain to initiate that behaviour, then the patient will make up a fake reason why they laughed ("you made a funny face").
I love things that question how we know what we think we know. That book is full of them.
I would believe you're right about higher pressure on signaling. That is also, in a round-about way, I think, one of the reasons why ratios wouldn't snowball out of control: In a hypothetical population of, say, 25% males and 75% females, monogamy would be replaced by "extreme" signaling by the females to attract barely-fit males, right? But even in this world without monogamy and fancy mating mechanisms, though, some females would still be competed out - so the ratio should very slowly approach 50/50, I think...
I might be wrong, but it seems like Women - not men - in this case would get fitter, faster. They are the ones that would be competing and crowding each other out, while (I'm guessing) men have little pressure, and all their genes would get passed on to the next generation. Is that the right logic?
In fact, doesn't this mean that as long as the sex of newborn babies is not related to current population ratios, the long term ratio will always hover around 50/50? I know I've seen examples in other species in which the sex of babies is related to the current male/female ratio, but I have no idea how that works in those species, let alone ours. Any insight?
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Also, that book looks really freakin' interesting. Thanks, chief!
In your original post you were talking about an excess of males, meaning higher competition between males for the scarce female resources. Since the Y chromosome is passed directly from father to son and never shows up in women, the effect of Y genes apply only to men, and can compete aggressively by focusing on male-specific benefits, whereas all other genes would get 'diluted' by having to benefit both males and females. In other words, your Y chromosome contains genes that helped ONLY men survive and reproduce going back millions of years, but all of your other genes have been shuffled between the sexes.
There are definitely pressures on most species to stay at a 50/50 sex ratio. The explanations I've read mostly use game theory, so economists should love it. I'm mostly familiar with Richard Dawkins (especially these three) but I bet John Maynard Smith is the real authority on sex ratio.
Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps, termites) can vary their sex ratio, because females are normal, with one set of chromosomes from the mother and one set from the father, but males are actually unfertilized, with only one set of chromosomes. The queen stores sperm from a one-time mating binge in her body, and can choose to fertilize eggs or not, and so choose to produce male or female offspring. That creates some really interesting selection pressures that make hive insects behave in unexpected ways.
This is some damn interesting stuff. I haven't given much thought specifically to genes and dilution - I think I'm always putting too much weight on a general theory of selection and not enough on the details, so I don't have much insight in the matter... I really enjoy speculating, though.
Also, I was referring to that example of a population with 75% females, by the way, in my previous comment. Of course that doesn't change your point at all - just figured I'd clarify.
That sex determination Wikipedia page is pretty informative, too (and interesting) - Thanks, chief!
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