This discovery, published on Wednesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, isn’t a biological excuse for men who have strayed from their significant other. Instead, it’s a tantalizing clue about why intelligence evolved.
Concluding paragraphs...
The evolution of learning remains a puzzle for scientists. A smart animal can learn how to find more food or how to avoid predators. But if learning were such an unalloyed good, then one might expect all animals to be as smart as we are.NY Times
They are not because there is a cost to learning. Dr. Kawecki and his colleagues have found that flies that have been bred to be good learners are more likely to die when competing for scarce food with regular flies. Even when they’re not threatened with starvation, their life span is 15 percent shorter than average.
It’s still not clear why that is so. Changes to the nervous system that come with learning may cause long-term damage of some sort, or learning may simply use up energy that could be directed to other uses.
Because of the cost, evolution may increase learning only when its benefits outweigh its drawbacks — such as when it affects mating. Dr. Hollis and Dr. Kawecki suspect that fast-learning males may be able to swiftly recognize receptive females, and thus mate with more of them before they die. Forcing the flies into monogamy, on the other hand, gets rid of learning’s benefits, leaving only the cost behind.
To test this idea, Dr. Hollis and Dr. Kawecki compared the mating prowess of the evolved flies. They put a group of male flies in a vial with one receptive female and five unreceptive ones and tallied how many mated in an hour. The scientists found that the polygamous males quickly zeroed in on the receptive female. The monogamous males, on the other hand, wasted time courting unreceptive females and being rejected.
“They’re just not figuring it out,” said Dr. Hollis.
While no one has yet carried out an experiment like this on other species, Dr. Hollis suspects that the relationship between sex and the evolution of learning might apply beyond flies — perhaps even to our own species.
“I think it really can inform us quite a lot about what’s going on in nature, and why we have the brains we have,” said Dr. Hollis.
30 comments:
Women I've Never Had!
Second Hank Williams, Jr. song I've posted this morning.
Country music has the remedy for whatever ails you!
Key lyric:
You know
A cowboy's work is never done!
While no one has yet carried out an experiment like this on other species
They might try observing an office setting when the summer intern young women arrive.
@Michael
If I was a pretty young summer intern, I'd head out to North Dakota to ride some cowboys.
Amen, Michael.
Monogamy was forced upon us when women found we could be useful at fixing stuff around the house.
That was about the time indoor plumbing came along.
Were they fruit flies?
Finally! Sweet justice at last.
@chickenlittle
Shame on you! They were straight flies!
"The scientists found that the polygamous males quickly zeroed in on the receptive female. The monogamous males, on the other hand, wasted time courting unreceptive females and being rejected."
And once again we are left asking: Did they really need a study?
Cause or effect?
They were non-stop flies.
There were no controled group of observers... or peeping toms.
Yes, but did the female flies go on welfare, abort more flies than they delivered, and vote Democrat?
Interesting article. Thanks, Lem!
Put the flies on Cuban-style health care. It's free. The flies will soon die. No need to count it against the official mortality rate. Vote Putin-Castro-Chavez-Clinton Fly sex!
What about the spiritual element in monogamous fly's lovemaking? And the hours of pillow talk afterwards.
Dr. H and Dr. K could not determine whether the female flies favored the caring spiritual love of their monogamous mates or the corkscrew wham bamming of their bad boy onesies. The answer most often given to the Drs. was "I'm conflicted."
"The monogamous males, on the other hand, wasted time courting unreceptive females and being rejected."
Rejected by a fruit fly. That's gotta have a long term effect on a dude's emotional well-being.
Also, Rule 34.
I like the theory that the primary driver behind the evolution of our intelligence was the need to manipulate other humans in a social setting.
Humans aren't particularly strong or durable. Our primary survival skill is our ability to specialize, and to barter our labor for the results of others' labor. Other primates do the same thing, just not as well as us.
Who you calling a "primate?"
Well, we are! That's the name of the taxonomic order we belong to.
The desperate fruit flies are all over fruitflymatch dot com.
" That's the name of the taxonomic order we belong to."
That's racist. Some of my best friends are primates, but we don't use the word when they're around.
These sorts of studies make me laugh a bit. It's like saying because Belgium does something, we should do it. Why would we want to be like Belgium?
Maybe what makes a fruit fly smarter really isn't something we should care about. They're fruit flies. I don't want to be a smarter fruit fly. They should do what we do. We're a lot smarter than the fruit flies already.
"They should do what we do".
Twerking? That's honeybee style.
It makes sense since one of the purposes of monogamy is to reduce the need to compete at some point, so you don't have to be as sharp, so you could expect one's weapons to rust.
Twerking?
No.
Luxurious mustaches.
"reduce the need to compete at some point"
If you're always competing about sex, your competing a very low level of human thriving. Take that competition out, provide security, energy can be put towards advancing lifestyle. The smartest animals are carnivores, hunting makes an animal smart. The even smarter animals, humans, put those animals in cages and gaze at those hunters for our entertainment while eating cotton candy and hot dogs. Not having to hunt for food constantly gave us time to invent concrete and metal bars and cars and ticket counters and fast food and the internet and science.
That's why scientists are nerds, they had all sorts of time to think and study stuff, while the jocks were getting the ladies, but who's smart now, you letter-laden high school heroes?!
Twerking? That's honeybee style.
... I feel extra nerdy for (a) getting that joke and (b) laughing.
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