The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition (Oxford Landmark Science) — Battle of the Sexes

1. 1. The conflict between mates is severe because they are not related, but they also have much to gain from cooperation in a nonzero-sum game.
2. 2. A small initial difference between the sexes can be self-enhancing, leading to divergence into males and females through selection on fighting versus parental care.
3. 3. Maynard Smith's model of guard and desert strategies yields only four stable outcomes: Duck, Stickleback, Fruit-fly, and Gibbon.
4. 4. Dawkins' earlier claim that the battle of the sexes would converge to a stable equilibrium is wrong; it actually produces endless cycles.
5. 5. Tamsin Carlisle's hypothesis about paternal care in fish was tested by Mark Ridley but not supported.
6. 6. The paradox of vanishing variation in sexual selection is resolved by Lande's mutation theory or Hamilton's parasite theory.
7. 7. Hamilton proposes that females choose males based on disease resistance, and males evolve honest advertisements like long tails that are hard to fake if unhealthy.
8. 8. Dawkins speculates that humans lost the penis bone because females selected for hydraulic erection as an honest health signal.
9. 9. Alan Grafen's mathematical model vindicates Zahavi's handicap principle, showing that costly honest advertising can be evolutionarily stable.
10. 10. The Zahavi-Grafen theory may revolutionize the study of animal signals, suggesting that seemingly crazy behaviors can evolve as honest handicaps.