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Romashka comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: Romashka 20 April 2015 06:38:14PM 1 point [-]

You really can't have a kid survive its mother who died in childbirth if the kid is as helpless as here.

UNLESS you have not only competition, but altruism, too.

Comment author: [deleted] 20 April 2015 06:40:59PM 1 point [-]

Yes, altruism can pretty easily be part of the picture. Kin selection and all that. Or, we can simply say that if a gene makes a male mate with 2x as many females but also makes 20% of the females die with the child dying too, it still propagates. And it still increases sexual competition by unbalancing gender ratios thus if it was in itself a sexual competition advantage, now it is on the relative level stronger.

Comment author: Lumifer 20 April 2015 07:24:35PM 0 points [-]

Or, we can simply say that if a gene makes a male mate with 2x as many females but also makes 20% of the females die with the child dying too, it still propagates.

Propagates for a very short while. If you initial population was stable (which means that each female had, on the average, two children which survive until they breed), introducing a mutation which kills off 20% of the females during birth is likely to lead to this population dying out pretty quickly. Yes, you'll have lots of males around, but they can't give birth.