Python vs. PHP (& Java?)

[Alex Martelli]

<rturpin at my-deja.com> wrote in message news:92jffg$cs1$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
> I wrote:
> >> .. If you want to look for adaptation, sexual selection
> >> may have more to do with this than natural selection. A
> >> silver tongue will not save you from the lion or bag
> >> the deer, but it will win a heart.
>
> In article <92j7q0033j at news1.newsguy.com>,
>   "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Sexual selection, particularly female-choice, IS very much
> > a part of natural selection ..
>
> I had the notion that Darwin distinguished the two. Not to

Oh yes, very much so -- particularly in 'Descent of Man',
of course; he basically posited them as different, even
competing mechanisms, seeing 'natural' selection as
inherently 'adaptive', 'sexual' selection as sometimes
to the contrary.  Fisher, I believe, contributed some
crucial insight in terms of a mathematical model of
"runaway sexual selection", and even more recent scholars
weighed in heavily on this side.

> imply that sexual selection is unnatural, but simply to
> differently label the two mechanisms. But I could remember
> wrong; I am no biologist.

Me neither: but I have hubris enough to strongly side
with more recent theorists in the field (of course, I
guess I would be incensed if a biologist expressed
himself as strongly in, e.g., the single versus multiple
inheritance schools of MY professional field -- but, as
everybody and his cousin DO think themselves past masters
at programming, the least I can do is reciprocate:-).

Briefly (cfr. e.g. Dorak's "Notes on Elementary Evolutionary
Biology", which offer the advantage of good web availability
at http://dorakmt.tripod.com/evolution/index.html):
"""
When fitness is seen as reproductive success rather than
simply survival, sexual selection [...] is no different from
what natural selection does
"""
and as reproductive success is the *only* 'fitness'
criterion that *ever* gets 'selected' for, the *only*
sense in which 'adaptive' can be read, the attempt
at drawing a fundamental distinction appears misguided
to me.  "Ability to survive", just like "being a
desirable mate for the other sex", or any other effect
of a phenotype's traits, is _indirectly_ adaptive in as
much as it can promote reproductive success.

I should, however, have acknowledged the traditional
distinction, and I apologize for the omission of such
acknowledgment!


Alex