> From: "Milnes, Edmund" <EDDY92@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 13:00:39 GMT
>
> this assumes that no oestrus chemicals ever
> existed because it is unlikely that even the most determined female
> could have consciously disguised them
You're right that the "concealment" variable, if there was one, would
have been mostly unconscious and involuntary. But I also suggested that
there are two ways to "conceal" something: One is to hide it when it's
really there, the other is to pretend it's really there when it isn't.
And it's in the latter direction that the camoflauge seems to have gone in
the human case. (This too, of course, would have been mostly
involuntary and unconscious, with anatomic changes mimicking those of
estrous.)
> So we have to ask; Why did evolution select women who by natural
> genetic variation, advertised their fertility state less than others?
Or falsely advertised their fertility when they were infertile:
Concealed anestrous might be a better mnemonic.
> The groups which first began to achieve this social structure by
> 'weeding out' females who advertised will have been superior in many
> ways to those groups who still had battles over their females once
> every month and will have therefore been naturally selected as the
> 'fittest groups' (they will also have formed a basis on which the trend
> of monogamous relationships could be established).
If it's continuous (mostly) false advertising that's at issue, then
these peace-in-the-group explanations don't work so well. Also, read
the Wilson & Sober to find out the pro's and con's of group selection.
ftp://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/BBS/bbs.wilson
On the face of it, group selection is not possible, because there is no
genetic entity corresponding to the group: Group members are, at best,
genetically indifferent to one another's genes, and, at worst, in
competition with them. Remember that, apart from things that benefit
one's kin (hence one's genes), Darwinism does not have a mechanism for
"group fitness."
Stevan Harnad
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