Author Topic: Why do pheasants have long tails?  (Read 3613 times)

Offline Jez

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Why do pheasants have long tails?
« on: January 01, 2008, 06:09:12 PM »
Just, you know, one of those things I read. A short essay by Richard Dawkins; http://richarddawkins.net/article,2095,Wha...Richard-Dawkins
If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have in your hands is a non-working cat.
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Offline Numsgil

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Why do pheasants have long tails?
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2008, 07:10:14 PM »
I don't follow the reasoning behind 1 through 3.  I'm not against the idea at all, I just didn't think that the assumptions 1 through 3 are self evident.  Maybe he explains it better in his book, though.

Offline shvarz

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Why do pheasants have long tails?
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2008, 01:01:00 PM »
I think the point here was that "it is possible to create a simple mathematical model that would show the advantage of having handicap that can be used for advertisement".  I don't think they propose that things are that simple or that these rules apply to every specie. As he says in the assay:
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Of course Grafen has not shown that animal displays are always Zahavian. But he has shown that the main theoretical objection to the handicap principle was wrong.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam