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Estoy leyendo un libro muy bueno sobre selección sexual escrito por Geoffrey Miller que se llama “The Mating Mind”. Selección sexual es la teoría complementaria a la selección natural, a la que incluso Darwin dedicó más tiempo e interés de lo que dedicó a esta última, que se utiliza para explicar características de las especies aparentemente aberrantes desde el punto de vista de la supervivencia, como las exuberantes colas de los pavo reales.

Mientras que la visión tradicional de la evolución es que la selección natural moldea los organismos de las especies para convertirlas en máquinas de supervivencia, la selección sexual convierte a los organismos en máquinas de entretenimiento y propaganda de la calidad de los genes que portan. Esta teoría es tan poderosa para explicar derroches de energía aparentemente inútiles desde el punto de vista de la supervivencia, que Miller no duda en utilizarla como hipótesis para explicar el origen de las características que distinguen al ser humano, sin necesidad de postular la posible existencia de unidades de herencia por encima de los genes (memes) sobre las cuales funcione la selección a nivel cultural. Debo confesar que después de lo que llevo estudiado sobre selección sexual, empiezo a pensar que puede que no sea necesario postular a los memes como mecanismo único de los orígenes de la cultura.

Además de lo interesante del tema, el estilo informal con el que está escrito lo hace muy ameno. He aquí una serie de citas sacadas del contexto del libro (y a veces con una pequeña ayudadita) para que se den una idea (lo escrito entre [] es contribución de su servilleta):

“Sexual selection was not only atheism, but indecent atheism.”

“In most species [and people] surplus energy is converted into fat, not creativity.”

“The least attractive males, as a rule, must be left single, heartbroken, and childless.”

“A species of bumbling incompetents could evolve, despite the survival costs of their stupidity, as long as stupidity remained sexually attractive. “

“Typically, males of most species like sex regardless of their fitness and attractiveness to the females, so they tend to treat female senses as security systems to be cracked.”

“As long as pleasure is defined broadly enough, to encompass everything from a full belly to a fulfilled life, an individual cannot wish for any subjective experience beyond pleasure.”

“And the most unpleasant females mate with the most unpleasant males, because their only alternative would be to remain single.”

“In fact, assuming monogamy, the genes for pleasure-giving will not have any reproductive advantage whatsoever over the genes for imposing unspeakable misery on one's sexual partner.”

“But evolution has no foresight. It lacks the long-term vision of drug company management.”

“These ornamental fashion cycles may not be good for the species as a whole, but evolution cares no more about the species as a whole than capital markets care about entrepreneurs.”

“Survival matters only insofar as it contributes to courtship.”

“Nature was not red in tooth and claw. Usually, it was really boring. Predators would have tended to kill the very young, the very ill, the very old, and the very foolish.”

“The male is unlikely to be the infant's father, but is simply trying to mate with the infant's mother by doing her a favor.”

“Female primates are sometimes reported to show "irrational" or "capricious" preferences that cannot be explained on the basis of male dominance, age, or group membership.”

“In single-male harem systems, the dominant male's sperm can become a limiting resource for female reproduction, and high-ranking females prevent low-ranking females from mating through aggression and harassment.”

“The chefs, musicians, and actors do not actually get to have sex with our dates. They just get paid. We get the sex if the date goes well. Of course, we still have to talk in modern courtship, and we still have to look reasonably good.”

“Consumerism turns the tables on ancestral patterns of human courtship. It makes courtship a commodity that can be bought and sold.”

“The minds of our ancestors were relatively naked compared to ours. They did not spend twenty years in formal education ornamenting their memory with dead people's ideas.[…] There was no masking a poor imagination with a good education, or a poor sense of rhythm with a good CD collection.”

“Herds of young bachelor males probably roamed around living their squalid, sexually frustrated lives, hoping they would eventually grow up enough for some group of women to take them in.”

Continuará…