The Wolf of Ethopia

[labelwench]

Perhaps the following is more along the line of thought you are pursuing?

What signals are you sending by your purchase of a piece of the mountain and the construction of an elaborate nest?

Are you reinforcing, to your mate and other observers, that you were indeed 'well selected'? (That, and that you can also cook, and clean up afterwards.)

It's a competitive world out there. One needs to maintain one's advantages, by various strategies.

Generality and empirical examples
The theory predicts that a sexual ornament, or any other signal, must be costly if it is to accurately advertise a trait of relevance to an individual with conflicting interests. Typical examples of handicapped signals include bird songs, the peacock's tail, courtship dances, bowerbird's bowers, or even possibly jewellery and humor. Jared Diamond has proposed that certain risky human behaviours, such as bungee jumping, may be expressions of instincts that have evolved through the operation of the handicap principle. Zahavi has invoked the potlatch ceremony as a human example of the handicap principle in action. This interpretation of potlatch can be traced to Thorstein Veblen's use of the ceremony in his book Theory of the Leisure Class as an example of "conspicuous consumption".

The handicap principle gains further support by providing interpretations for behaviours that fit into a single unifying gene-centered view of evolution and making earlier explanations based on group selection obsolete. A classic example is that of stotting in gazelles. This behaviour consists in the gazelle initially running slowly and jumping high when threatened by a predator such as a lion or cheetah. The explanation based on group selection was that such behaviour might be adapted to alerting other gazelle to a cheetah's presence or might be part of a collective behaviour pattern of the group of gazelle to confuse the cheetah. Instead, Zahavi proposed that each gazelle was communicating to the cheetah that it was a fitter individual than its fellows and that the predator should avoid chasing it.

[labelwench]

Suddenly credit cards, and living beyond one's means makes sense, in a crazy way, not to sidetrack this thread. They are a natural consequence of 'the handicap principle' as the persons so engaged are attempting to emulate a 'true' signal which will give them an advantage in life, not the least of which is mate selection. With the benefit of an excellent mate, one achieves many advantages, including superior chance of offspring survival, and that those offspring will likewise inherit traits which will perpetuate such advantages.

The handicap principle is a hypothesis proposed by biologist Amotz Zahavi to explain the existence of apparently "honest", or reliable, communication between animals despite the apparent evolutionary advantage to cheating or bluffing. The theory proposes that animals of greater quality communicate this status through behaviour or morphology that imposes a cost which reduces their advantage. The central idea is that sexually selected traits function like conspicuous consumption signalling the ability to afford to squander a resource simply by squandering. Receivers know that the signal indicates quality because inferior quality signallers cannot afford to produce such wastefully extravagant signals. The generality of the phenomenon is the matter of some debate and disagreement, Zahavi's views on the scope and importance of handicaps in biology remain outside the mainstream. Nevertheless, the idea has been very influential, with most researchers in the field believing that the theory explains some aspects of animal communication.

[Graybeard]

What signals are you sending by your purchase of a piece of the mountain and the construction of an elaborate nest?

Are you reinforcing, to your mate and other observers, that you were indeed 'well selected'? (That, and that you can also cook, and clean up afterwards.)

It's a competitive world out there. One needs to maintain one's advantages, by various strategies.

Not exactly ... but I take your point ....I am, and have always been, a great lover of the outback. I have all the Arthur Upfield Novels and have visited nearly all of the 'crime scenes'.

To have my own property was my aim. And that property would have certain requirements.

Nobody else would want it. Useless for farming and any agricultural purposes. It would be large enough to wander about in without getting bored. It had to be very rugged. All these things are in the property I bought.

The shack started out as a shack ... but somehow it grew ... and the designer made a great proposal .... and so it is being built .... more expensive than planned .... but the tourism in the Bunyas may pay all this back. we'll see .... lol

The line of thought I am pursuing re: Natural Selection is not to do with this. For the inanimate to become animate a series of steps, minute, in they're billions, each one indistinguishable from the step either side ..... had to occur.

There must be remnants of all these steps ... not all would have been selected against. Therefore some are still in existence and performing they're roles.

I can't use the word 'believe' as Lloyd will accuse me of religious creationism .... rotflmao. (Funny how he attacks the word and not the intent. Makes it easy really, like a red cape when the bull is charging .... lolololol)

So, I 'contend' that I have found one of these steps (possibly two) and that it is a critical one. By critical, I mean that people who look for signs and milestones instead of the absorbing the complete process, will be happy with it. Unfortunately I am not in a position to carry out scientific experiments, I only have theory.

cool bananas ... greg.