Jan 22, 2022 06:45 PM
https://theconversation.com/evolution-ho...rch-175261
EXCERPTS: . . . But according to a new paper, published in Science, Charles Darwin’s patriarchal world view led him to dismiss female agency and mate choice in humans.
He also downplayed the role of female variation in other animal species, assuming they were rather uniform, and always made similar decisions. And he thought there was enormous variation among the males who battled for female attention by showing off stunning ranges of skills and beauty. This maintained the focus on the dynamics of male dominance hierarchies, sexual ornamentation and variation as drivers of sexual selection, even if females sometimes did the choosing.
But do Darwin’s ideas on sexual selection hold up today? [...] Research since Darwin therefore reveals that mate choice is a far more complex process than he may have supposed, and is governed by variation in both sexes.
[...] So, is the accusation of sexism levelled at Darwin really valid, and did this cloud his science? There is certainly some evidence that Darwin underestimated the importance of variation, strategy and even promiscuity in most female animals.
[...] Inevitably, Darwin’s world view was shaped by the culture of his time, and his personal writings make it difficult to mount a particularly robust defence. In a letter from 1882, he wrote “I certainly think that women, though generally superior to men to [sic] moral qualities are inferior intellectually; & there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance … in their becoming the intellectual equals of man”.
He also deliberated over the relative merits of marriage, famously noting: “Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — but terrible loss of time”.
Unsurprisingly there is much that Darwin did not fully understand. Darwin – like Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe – married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Ironically, he knew nothing of genetics and the mechanisms by which close relatives are more likely to have offspring with certain genetic diseases. Intriguingly, our closest relatives in the tree of life, the chimpanzees, naturally circumvent this problem, since females select mates that are more distantly related to them than the average male in the available pool.
Despite its omissions, however, Darwin’s understanding was radically more advanced than anything that preceded it. When combined with the subsequent understanding of genetics and inheritance, Darwin’s writings are still the bedrock of all modern evolutionary biology... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . But according to a new paper, published in Science, Charles Darwin’s patriarchal world view led him to dismiss female agency and mate choice in humans.
He also downplayed the role of female variation in other animal species, assuming they were rather uniform, and always made similar decisions. And he thought there was enormous variation among the males who battled for female attention by showing off stunning ranges of skills and beauty. This maintained the focus on the dynamics of male dominance hierarchies, sexual ornamentation and variation as drivers of sexual selection, even if females sometimes did the choosing.
But do Darwin’s ideas on sexual selection hold up today? [...] Research since Darwin therefore reveals that mate choice is a far more complex process than he may have supposed, and is governed by variation in both sexes.
[...] So, is the accusation of sexism levelled at Darwin really valid, and did this cloud his science? There is certainly some evidence that Darwin underestimated the importance of variation, strategy and even promiscuity in most female animals.
[...] Inevitably, Darwin’s world view was shaped by the culture of his time, and his personal writings make it difficult to mount a particularly robust defence. In a letter from 1882, he wrote “I certainly think that women, though generally superior to men to [sic] moral qualities are inferior intellectually; & there seems to me to be a great difficulty from the laws of inheritance … in their becoming the intellectual equals of man”.
He also deliberated over the relative merits of marriage, famously noting: “Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — but terrible loss of time”.
Unsurprisingly there is much that Darwin did not fully understand. Darwin – like Albert Einstein, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe – married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood. Ironically, he knew nothing of genetics and the mechanisms by which close relatives are more likely to have offspring with certain genetic diseases. Intriguingly, our closest relatives in the tree of life, the chimpanzees, naturally circumvent this problem, since females select mates that are more distantly related to them than the average male in the available pool.
Despite its omissions, however, Darwin’s understanding was radically more advanced than anything that preceded it. When combined with the subsequent understanding of genetics and inheritance, Darwin’s writings are still the bedrock of all modern evolutionary biology... (MORE - missing details)