Sexual Selection Is Not Helpful to “Evolution”

Can you say “breast implants”? Standard of beauty same as 30,000 years ago. That is more than 1,000 generations of NO “evolution”!

  1. Sexual selection tries to explain sexual dimorphism and more. According to the theory, certain conspicuous physical traits, such as pronounced coloration, increased size, or striking adornments have “evolved” through sexual selection. The selecting sex often displays similar but subdued ornaments, indicating a sort of sexual selection leak from the selected to the selecting if the theory is true. Sexual selection is independent and often in conflict with “natural selection” when the sexually selected traits appear detrimental to general survival of the species. The extinct Irish Elk Deer is the standard example of detrimental sexual selection.
  2. At least two incompatible mating behaviors have been randomly grouped under “sexual selection”. One is “select the display”, while the other is “fight for mating rights”. The first one looks somewhat like selection. In the second case the dominant male mates indiscriminately, so there is no selection of the female and the female cannot turn down the dominant male, so there is no selection there either. Other schemes are “save the sperm” and “adopt a male”, both of which are not associated with any selection.
  3. Sexual selection would be just “natural selection” if such thing existed, contrary to Darwin’s contrived distinction. Fighting males for instance do not give females any choice. The “better fit” simply has more offspring by force. The female, predator, pray, parasites, community, and the environment in general, they all “select” the “best fit” whatever that means. If sexual selection were true, then there were also be predator selection as well as pray, parasite, community, kin, and so on ad infinitum selection, all conflicting with each other. Or to sum, no “natural selection”. No wonder Alfred Russel Wallace thought the idea of sexual selection as a driving force in “evolution” crazy.
  4. There is no sexual selection distinct from ‘Attraction to Universal Beauty’. Our tastes differ from bugs to humans in large part due to sensory limitations. But otherwise we all have the same standards of beauty. All organisms are intrigued by shapes, colors, contrasts, movements, sounds. We like other beautiful organism and inanimate objects. The cat likes the mouse and the mouse appreciates the cat’s beauty. Just as humans like both the dangerous lion and the cute, tasty pig. And everyone finds everyone’s babies more attractive. What animals like in one another is hard to tease due to their limited communication, but humans like the peacock as the peahen does, the lion as the lioness, the butterfly, the puppy, kitten, dragonfly, cricket, pup seal, cub bear, and many, many more as their own kind do. We can’t even get enough of the ugliest – pug dog, sphynx cat, lizards, snakes, vultures, and more – devoting much to bring them near us. And if we humans like them all, they would probably appreciate each other too across all species, were it not for fear, sensory and intelligence limitations. ”At least humans are not sexually attracted to animals” would be the counterargument. Would any human have sex with a peacock? A rabbit?? A cat, bat, fish (well, mermaid)??? Oh no, they would… as erotic animal costumes show. What a shame!
  5. Contrary to sexual selection that is expected to drift randomly, the standards of beauty remain essentially unchanged. Consider an “evolutionary” proto-bird. Million of years later, suppose the proto-bird split due to random events and various environments into the many bird species we see today. Then – to take one example – the current beautiful peacock is just the product of a series of random events and of its own female’s search for beauty. There is nothing in its current environment that demands that particular look. And why exactly is the peahen so desperate for that particular look? She isn’t. There is nothing in her little skull, genes, environment, or anywhere else that demands that particular look. She is only intrigued by beauty like the rest of us. Any beauty, not just the standard peacock beauty. If some peacock decides to build a beautiful bower (not suddenly, just amassing shiny objects in a first gen) or another peacock finds his voice, another becomes more protective, or goes for a modern look, she’s liable to fall for that new fellow and change the course of peafowl history. Which in the end turns out to be no different than random. So why does the peacock look the way he does? Just random. Why do all dimorphic birds look and behave as they do? Just random. Why the lion’s mane, the woman’s breasts and on and on? Random again and again. Yet the “just random” Darwinist reply does not work as “easy come, easy go” – “random come, random go” whereas the standards of beauty remain essentially unchanged. As Venus of Willendorf shows, the human standard of beauty has not changed in at least 30,000 years or 1,000 generations, these days aided by breast and buttock implants. A hypothesized trend (“evolution”) that doesn’t budge for that long cannot be a real trend.
  6. Whatever happens to organisms is outside their control, hence sexual selection cannot shape organisms as Darwin imagined. The peahen is not responsible in the slightest for the peacock’s plumage. Even if it had an objective, the “selecting” sex has no means to get to that objective. The best example of what selection can do and cannot do is breeding. Human breeders indeed have the long term targets and the best technology available. Yet all they can do is fragile deformed variants of the wild that require a lot to survive and propagate and that under no circumstance will “diverge” into new “species”. Contrast that with the “selecting” bird. Why is she having sex? She doesn’t know. What is she looking for? She doesn’t know… whatever her beauty instinct tells her. She doesn’t read, write, or talk. Cannot correlate the beauty seen to underlying health of her peer. Doesn’t know she will have offspring, let alone how to improve their lot… if she even cares. We know all these because we, the humans, are also automatons with regard to our descendants. We know very little and can influence almost nothing. Countless number of parents hope for more from their children, yet are badly disappointed. Where are the descendants of famous rulers, scientists, artists, and athletes? Nowhere in particular. They all regressed to the mean. And it is even worse for some of those afflicted by “reason” as they decide to “save the planet” by not even having any offspring at all.
  7. Incorrect assumptions drive the confused “evolution through sexual selection” narrative: that the selection has a direction – without a direction, there is no output different than random; that the selected passes most of his characteristics to the progeny – this disregards regression to the mean as well as the contribution of the other parent, meaning the selector; that the phenotype is entirely encoded in the genotype – if this were the case, we would be able to control 100% of the phenotype by changing the genome, but it’s clear that’s not possible even theoretically; that successive mutations can accomplish anything as long as sexual selection guides the output – this is clearly false as breeding shows when comparing the robustness of crossbreeds with the feebleness of purebreds. Of course Darwin was clueless about genetics. But even with our current best knowledge of genetics – knowledge that the selecting sex completely lacks – it is not clear what sexual selection accomplishes, given that the Y chromosome is just a very small percentage of the genome. After all, offspring inherit both lineages regardless of sex. So if the male progeny is attractive like the male parent (a positive), that may be offset by both the male and female offspring becoming more attractive to the predator too (two negatives). For instance, in some peafowl, even the peahen has some conspicuous blue streaks that cannot help her camouflage.
  8. In conclusion, “evolution” by sexual selection is one confused mess because:
    1. The distinction between sexual selection and “natural selection” (if such thing existed) is contrived
    2. Incompatible mating behaviors are incorrectly grouped under the same banner
    3. Attraction to Universal Beauty is what is incorrectly interpreted as sexual selection
    4. The standard of beauty is essentially unchanged contrary to the Darwinist narrative
    5. Whatever happens to organisms is outside their control, hence sexual selection cannot shape organisms as Darwin imagined
    6. Darwin’s sexual selection hypothesis is based on a number of incorrect and ignorant assumptions

 Links:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/224257/the-evolution-of-beauty-by-richard-o-prum/

https://www.britannica.com/science/sexual-selection

https://www.treehugger.com/ugliest-animals-on-the-planet-4869328

https://www.amazon.com/peacock-costumes-women/s?k=peacock+costumes+for+women

https://www.amiclubwear.com/costume-animal.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf#/media/File:Venus_of_Willendorf_-_All_sides.jpg

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