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DanArmak comments on When does heritable low fitness need to be explained? - Less Wrong Discussion

15 Post author: DanArmak 10 June 2015 12:05AM

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Comment author: OrphanWilde 10 June 2015 09:00:08PM 3 points [-]

The 50% who get killed lowers the reproductive fitness of having a girl by the exact amount that the reproductive fitness of having girls is raised by the lower percentage of them relative to men.

Or to take it from another route, the average number of children had by men and women must remain equal.

Comment author: DanArmak 10 June 2015 09:27:33PM 1 point [-]

The 50% who get killed lowers the reproductive fitness of having a girl by the exact amount that the reproductive fitness of having girls is raised by the lower percentage of them relative to men.

That's why I said the women who grow up have higher fitness, not all women born.

The detail of my example, that girl babies are born and then killed, is easy to modify. Imagine a drug that, when taken by a woman before sex, selectively kills XY sperm. Or a sex-selective early abortifact.

The average number of children by men and women must remain equal, but the average number of men children and woman children doesn't have to.