The question isn’t whether or not we need a new theory of evolution (The long read, 28 June); it’s why it has taken so long to bring the old one into the 21st century. Anchor bias, the difficulty of dislodging the first thing we learn about a topic, makes it challenging for biologists to accept and evaluate experimental data that doesn’t play by Darwin’s rules.
Natural selection had many fathers, including Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus. But sexual selection is exclusively Darwin’s, and is the theory most in need of a second look. The failure to update the theory of sexual selection by incorporating recent genetic breakthroughs and viewing the process through a female lens has left us with a seriously flawed theory of human evolution.
The evolutionary moonshot that enabled Homo sapiens to go where other species have failed to follow has its roots in a reproductive mutation – concealed ovulation and continuous sexual receptivity – that dramatically increased the strategic agency employed by females. But Darwin believed that “civilised” women were no longer intelligent enough to make informed choices. He was, therefore, able to ignore the behaviour of 51% of the population and to underestimate the power of his own theory. Sexual selection is about much more than beauty – it establishes the origins of everything that defines human exceptionalism.
Why does all this matter? Because humans are facing an environmental disaster of our own making. Only by developing an accurate understanding of the factors that shaped human species-specific behaviour will we be able to avert the rapidly approaching climate apocalypse. Sexual selection may have shaped us, but our failure to take an unbiased look at ourselves could be handing natural selection the power to eliminate us.
Heather Remoff
Author, What’s Sex Got To Do With It? Darwin, Love, Lust, and the Anthropocene
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