Article ID: CBB001211675

Darwin and Sexual Selection: One Hundred Years of Misunderstanding (2010)

unapi

Veuille, Michel (Author)


Comptes Rendus Biologies
Volume: 333, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 145-156


Publication Date: 2010
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “A non-Darwinian Darwin”
Language: English

Darwin's book on theDescent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) is often viewed as the continuation of The Origin of Species published 12 years earlier (1859), both because of the implicit parallelism between natural selection and sexual selection, and because Darwin himself presents the book as developing a subject (man) which he intentionally omitted in theOrigin. But theDescent can also be viewed as the continuation of his book on Variation published three years earlier (1868). Firstly because Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis links the selection process to the origin of variation through use and disuse, an idea underlying his speculations on the origin of moral sense in humans. Second because like the action of the horticulturist on his domestic crops, sexual selection exerted by one sex on the other sex can develop fancy traits that are not easily accounted for by their utility to the selected organism itself, such as artistic taste, pride, courage, and the morphological differences between human populations. These traits are dif cult to reconcile with pangenesis. They add up to other contradictions of the book possibly resulting from Darwin's erroneous inference about the mechanism of inheritance, like those on the determination of sex-ratio, or the confusion between individual adaptation and the advantage to the species. These inconsistencies inaugurate a weakening of the Darwinian message, which will last 50 years after his death. They contributed to the neglect of sexual selection for a century. Darwin however maintained a logical distinction between evolutionary mechanisms and hereditary mechanisms, and an epistemological distinction between evolutionary theory and Pangenesis hypothesis. In the modern context of Mendelian genetics, Darwin's sexual selection retrospectively appears as luminous an idea in its pure principle as natural selection, even though the mechanisms governing the evolution of sexual choice in animals remain largely unresolved.

...More
Included in

Article Gayon, Jean; Veuille, Michel (2010) A Non-Darwinian Darwin: An Introduction. Comptes Rendus Biologies (pp. 83-86). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001211675/

Similar Citations

Book Brzezinski Prestes, Maria Elice; Martins, Lilian Al-Chueyr Pereira; Stefano, Waldir; (2006)
Filosofia e História da Biologia 1 (/isis/citation/CBB000820181/)

Book Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2010)
Looking for a Few Good Males: Female Choice in Evolutionary Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001020405/)

Chapter Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2010)
Beauty and the Beast? Conceptualizing Sex in Evolutionary Narratives (/isis/citation/CBB001020306/)

Chapter Engels, Eve-Marie; (2009)
Charles Darwins geheimnisvolle Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB001023713/)

Article Hull, David L.; (2011)
Defining Darwinism (/isis/citation/CBB001023980/)

Article Gayon, Jean; (2010)
Sexual Selection: Another Darwinian Process (/isis/citation/CBB001211674/)

Book Sherrie L. Lyons; (2019)
From Cells to Organisms: A History of Cell Theory (/isis/citation/CBB971130807/)

Book Tudge, Colin; (2001)
Impact of the Gene: From Mendel's Peas to Designer Babies (/isis/citation/CBB000102136/)

Book Hamlin, Kimberly Ann; (2014)
From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America (/isis/citation/CBB001422038/)

Book Larson, Barbara; Brauer, Fae; (2009)
The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms, and Visual Culture (/isis/citation/CBB001035080/)

Book Grosz, Elizabeth; (2011)
Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art (/isis/citation/CBB001221153/)

Chapter Alessandro Minelli; (2015)
I limiti temporali e la periodizzazione dello sviluppo (/isis/citation/CBB017623140/)

Book Caporael, Linnda R.; Griesemer, James R.; Wimsatt, William C.; (2014)
Developing Scaffolds in Evolution, Culture, and Cognition (/isis/citation/CBB001510224/)

Book R. Paul Thompson; (2015)
A Remarkable Journey: The Story of Evolution (/isis/citation/CBB549807336/)

Chapter Cueto, Marcos; (2001)
Natural History, High-Altitude Physiology and Evolutionary Ideas in Peru (/isis/citation/CBB000102716/)

Book Hamilton, William Donald; (1996)
Evolution of Social Behaviour (/isis/citation/CBB000320537/)

Book Domingues, Heloisa Maria Bertol; Sá, Magali Romero; Glick, Thomas F.; (2003)
A recepção do darwinismo no Brasil (/isis/citation/CBB000640193/)

Authors & Contributors
Milam, Erika Lorraine
Hamlin, Kimberly Ann
Hall, Brian K.
Thompson, Paul Murray
Minelli, Alessandro
Wimsatt, William C.
Concepts
Evolution
Darwinism
Biology
Sexual selection
Heredity
Natural selection
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
21st century
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
Peru
South America
United States
Brazil
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment