Talk:Sexual selection

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2018 and 28 November 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sfmabbott (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Sjh1917, Rseward13.

Female intrasexual competition

Female intrasexual competition is a potential candidate for merging with this article (which already has a section titled "Male intrasexual competition"). That article has a list of sources, however parts of it is also human-centric which doesn't seem fitting here. —Srid^🍁 21:33, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

On second thought, this may not be a proper candidate for a merger due to being human-centric. That said however this article could make use of a 'Female intrasexual competition' section that cites reliable sources (example: [1]). —Srid^🍁 21:37, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Well yes. The human-centricity is a problem, as I said in my edit comment. Much more serious is the fact that the FIC article doesn't seem to be evolutionary biology as currently presented, so a merge would be inappropriate. The current SS article does in fact discuss the female aspect but with good secondary sources this side of the article could be expanded. The Rosvall article is a suitable review (if a bit old now) and is appropriately skeptical of some of the glossier claims. Chiswick Chap (talk) 22:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Given the current size of that article and that it's focused on humans, I'm not seeing that a merge is a good idea. It is worth seeing just how much the literature focuses on female intrasexual competition with regard to non-human animals. Some non-human and human material can be covered here at the Sexual selection article, and include a hatnote pointing to the Female intrasexual competition article. The title of the Female intrasexual competition article could be changed to "Human female intrasexual competition" until its expanded to include non-human animal material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:15, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

As it stands now, the female intrasexual article has enough to stand on its own feet without the merging, I must concur. Also, that is solely about humans, while this article is about both human and non-human creatures, and we don't want to add a big block of material that will be too big for a human section when it can have its own page. SuperCarnivore591 (talk) 05:30, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

This section of the sexual selection talk page is linked to by the female intrasexual selection talk page that asks why there is no male intrasexual selection article, as though it justifies the absence of such an article. This whole subject is of profound importance and seems to be completely muddled in Wikipedia. Jim Bowery (talk) 13:44, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Kategorien

There has been some confusion about this article's subject area. The topic is purely biological - in fact, evolutionary biology - and has no connection to issues of gender equality and human cultural developments: we have plenty of articles on those subjects. Therefore, there is no need in this article for categories relating to purely human areas; indeed, any such categorisation or discussion of those matters is off-topic for this article in evolutionary biology. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Sexual selection by males?

Most of the content of this article seems to be working from the assumption that sexual selection only works in one direction, with females selecting for traits in males. While this is almost always the case, there seem to be a number of exceptions where it is the males doing the choosing and the female traits that are being selected for. This is hinted at in the 'Sexual dimorphism' section where it mentions the reversal of normal roles in phalaropes. The intro section is good, in that it doesn't restrict the phenomenon to female selection, but most of the rest of the article implies that it only works in this direction.

For some info about possible exceptions: https://academic.oup.com/cz/article/64/3/321/4992021

I think it might be good to include some additional information in the article indicating that it is possible for sexual selection to work on female traits. (unsigned comments added by User:Jabowery on 20 July 2020‎)

Use of primary sources

Quite a bit of this article is composed of chunks of elaborate detail, each supported by a single primary source (— you know the type of thing, "Flywheel, Quicktalk and Waffler 2021 hypothesize that adolescent male lesser-spotted marsh newts exemplify intralocus sexual conflict..."). This gives an impression of fullness and (for the gullible) of reliable citation, while actually leaving the article in a sorry state, unbalanced, incomplete, confusing, and cluttered, and not setting out the main points of the topic. Some of this has been caused by SPA-type editors (possibly students) who have edited one aspect, briefly, and vanished.

What is required is for the article to give an overview of the field, which is enormous, from secondary sources such as review articles. As a principle for this kind of article (technical, on a huge field, with over a century of research history), we should not be citing any primary sources unless these are supported by secondary sources, i.e. we mention Darwin, Fisher, Zahavi because they've been cited by thousands of others (i.e. they've founded the field), and we cite review articles which cite them.

All biology editors who notice anyone adding chunks of primary material should feel free to ask for secondary sources, immediately warn the primary-cite-and-run guys that their material will be removed unless so cited, and if need be to revert. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:33, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

False attribution to to Wallace instead of just Darwin

I just made an edit to a line that said the idea was first articulate by Darwin and Wallace, which (happily) has a linked source. The source in fact proves that Darwin, not Wallace, discussed sexual selection. See Page 6 of http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1858_species_F350.pdf The source was mistakenly attributed to "Darwin & Wallace" together as if it was a co-authored paper, but the source is not a co-authored paper. The overall source is a published compendium of several sources (excerpts and letters), with clear separation between what is Darwin and what is Wallace. (Adding to the confusion, the original publishing treated it like a joint single treatise by Darwin and Wallace, but that's not what the sources were.) The sexual selection part is entirely Darwin, and the idea is not mentioned in the parts authored by Wallace. So, my correction is supported by the historical source. I noticed the error because there are extensive letters between Darwin and Wallace where it's comically clear that Wallace did not understand sexual selection. And Wallace opposed the idea, and that opposition helped to ruin their relationship. So for all these reasons, it cannot and should not be attributed to Wallace.RandomEditor6772314 (talk) 21:26, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Ok, the citation indeed needs updating. I'll do that now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Various definitions of sexual selection

I have noticed that this article treats the definition in the lead as the only definition when are other definitions.

Like [this source] states. One widely accepted definition is that “sexual selection is the differences in reproduction that arise from variation among individuals in traits that affect success in competition over mates and fertilizations”.CycoMa (talk) 23:15, 12 August 2021 (UTC)