The Red Queen discussion thread

[Boris]

Sounds like an interesting book. There was a recent study cited on Marginal Revolution that showed that rich women tend to have relatively more sex with more men. Yes that means they tend to be not monogamous. The rich women in this study were not dependent on their husband for their wealth. So this kind of consistent with the women cheat on their husband if they think he is a loser theory.

On Jerrod Diamond, I was not at all impressed with Guns, germs and Steel. I thought his hypothesis was poorly defended and I thought he had a political agenda. Basically, if I remember correctly, he thinks that the evolution of a particular society is dependent upon that societies access to natural resources. This may be true in the very early stages of evolution but it completely falls apart fairly soon.

[kkcountry]

grunching, because i am just about to start this book, and don't want it spoiled. i picked it up along with _the selfish gene_ and a book written by deida, whose title escapes me now, thanks to the same PUA thread. i really enjoyed _the selfish gene_ and am excited to start the other two books this weekend. has there been any discussion on _the selfish gene_ here recently?

[garcia1000]

Ruben Bolling gives us a concise book summary of Selfish Gene:

[kkcountry]

wow, those are srsly lol

[Los Feliz Slim]

I heard an interesting anecdote the other day that may or may not belong here.

An actor I met had served as the emcee for a European tour of the Chippendales (male strippers). In Europe the Chippendales are apparently not a big joke. Firstly, all of the Chippendales are not gay, which surprised me a little. But what really surprised me is that this guy said that they're basically all heterosexual prostitutes. He said they'd get back to the hotel after the show and there would be crowds of women there waiting to pay the dancers for sex. He said these guys would take five or six women up to their rooms in one night and make HUGE bank.

It just surprised me that women casually pay for meaningless sex, I thought only guys did that (some guys, anyway). At the very least I would've thought that gigolos had to go to dinner, etc, so they could at least pretend there was some semblance of a relationship.

Anyway, this surprised me.

[A_C_Slater]

[kbfc]

[ QUOTE ]

I seem to recall somewhere in the Selfish Gene that Dawkins mentions a study they did on some sort of wild animal (I think lions) on this subject. It turned out that the mate of choice was usually a first cousin.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just happened to have read this passage earlier today. It's from the endnotes to chapter 6 of The Selfish Gene. It involves Japanese Quail. Apparently the conclusion was that they chose mates by looking for others who looked like their siblings with whom they were raised, but not too much like them.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

garcia,

those are amazing.

[SmokeyRidesAgain]

When I was studying psychology the couple of lectures on evolutionary psychology made me lol all over the shop. The majority (probably all actually) of it is just some convoluted idea that explains behaviour in terms of genetics in any way it can rather than being the product of scientific deduction. Not saying it's all false but it's really sketchy and in some cases ridiculous.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

examples please.