User:RichardWeiss/sandboxR

This is a place for storing refs which can then be used in articles when required.

Tech and data

 * Productivity Commission wants Australians to be given right to opt out of data collection Published by The Guardian 2 November, 2016

Preface
mentions importance of mendel, mentions bateson, claims natural selection undervalued by evolution, that natural selection the technique, evolution a place to show where it manifests, mentions dominance and linkage, says summarizes chapters at end

Sex
Problems of sex, good stuff on meiosis

"The fittest genotypes dont survive" Nature cannot duplicate an outstanding individual such as Darwin (ref doesnt give this example) "The few known species that can reproduce only asexually are believed by scientists to have evolved “by accident” from sexual species, and are seen as evolutionary dead ends." "Researchers studying the role of sex in evolution generally use standard models of population genetics that look at how a population’s average fitness changes over the generations" "Unlike previous attempts at explanation, which offered reasons why sex might be beneficial despite its dilution of the fittest genomes, the team argues that sex is beneficial precisely because of this dilution process." Thisis talking about the dilution of say my genes, ie the 2nd cost of sex "“Everybody had assumed that the whole point of sex is to help increase fitness, but it’s not,” says Christos Papadimitriou, a member of the research team and a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley." "calls into question the conventional wisdom that asexual reproduction predated sexual reproduction." "Explaining the mechanisms that keep sex alive in the short-term despite its costs is an important unsolved problem"

Secondary
New York Times Book Review

Primary
"Human language evolved to be much more elaborate than necessary for basic survival functions."

"In the 1930s, biologists redefined natural selection to include sexual selection, because they did not think sexual selection was very important."

"Sexual inheritance puts sexual reproduction at the heart of evolution. The concept of sexual selection is simply a way of describing how differences in reproductive success lead to evolutionary change."

"sexual ornaments advertise each sex's fitness to the other sex—a function of mate choice that may stretch back to the origins of sexual reproduction itself"

"The concept of heritability applies only to traits that differ between individuals. If a trait exists in precisely the same form across all individuals, it may be inherited, but it cannot be heritable."

"It was several decades later that ... some biologists rediscovered Darwin's ideas. One of these young thinkers was Ronald Fisher"

On Fisher: "To biologists, he was an architect of the "modern synthesis" that used mathematical models to integrate Mendelian genetics with Darwin's selection theories. To psychologists, Fisher was the inventor of various statistical tests that are still supposed to be used whenever possible in psychology journals. To farmers, Fisher was the founder of experimental agricultural research, saving millions from starvation through rational crop breeding programs."

"In thinking about the evolution of sexual preferences, Fisher developed the two major themes of modern sexual selection theory." ... "Fisher's breakthrough was to view sexual preferences themselves as legitimate biological traits that can vary, that can be inherited, and that can evolve." ... "While Darwin had left sexual preferences as mysterious causes of sexual selection, Fisher asked how sexual preferences themselves evolved.

"Fisher proposed that many sexual ornaments evolved as indicators of fitness, health, and energy."

On Fisher: "In his first paper on sexual choice in 1915"

"Sexual selection tends to amplify individual differences in traits so that they can be easily judged during mate choice."

"By the mid-1980s, biologists were seriously assessing the fitness indicator idea"

"Fitness indicators are pointless unless individuals vary in their fitness. If we take fitness to mean the possession of good genes that can be inherited by offspring, then it seems hard to understand how evolution can allow any variation in fitness to remain. Selection is supposed to maximize fitness, driving it ever upwards. It is not supposed to permit fitness variation to persist in species just to provide an incentive for sexual choice."

Lek's paradox

For male mate choice in primates

that hidden ovulation protects female mate choice "it guarded their power of sexual choice"

"Consumerism...makes courtship a commodity that can be bught and sold"

Former children of a hominid mother can effect sexual selection by influencing mother's mate choices, making humans the best fathers in primates. "Men attracted women by pleasing their kids" "human fathering instincts may have evolved through sexual selection for pleasing the existing children"