razib2 comments on Doublethink (Choosing to be Biased) - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 September 2007 08:05PM

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Comment author: razib2 16 September 2007 06:06:51AM 1 point [-]

Imagine a gene that caused 9/10 of the humans who have it to be twice as fertility and attractiveness as the population that did not have it, while 1/10 of the humans who have it can't reproduce at all.

btw. you don't have to imagine. sickle cell is like this. a proportion of the population gets increased benefit from having the gene, and a proportion gets decreased benefit, in the ratio of heterozygotes (those who carry one sickle cell allele and one normal) and homozogytes (those who carry two alleles), i.e., 2pq:q^2. that's not species selection, it's standard balancing selection upon one gene.