
The Price of Life Is Death, but Sex Improves the Exchange Rate - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/88/love--sex/the-price-of-life-is-death-but-sex-improves-the-exchange-rate
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JoeAltmaier
Vague, unsupported claims that someone with better genes in a stable
population requires someone else to die. How about, not be born? Or cause some
other person not to reproduce at all by competing for mates more successfully?

This is what happens when philosophers try to do math etc.

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mtVessel
From the article: "We ought to add some nuance. For each incremental increase
in the frequency of the beneficial mutation, it’s not technically a death
that’s called for, but only the failure of one individual to survive and
reproduce. Maybe someone just doesn’t get to have her allotted offspring. The
point is only that the parent’s genetic lineage must come to an end. But in
nature, that usually means mortality for either the prospective parent or the
offspring. A reasonable shorthand is, well, just death."

This is what happens when skimmers comment.

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JoeAltmaier
Nope. Saw that. That's where they glossed over the more likely outcome (fail
to reproduce) and said well, probably somebody dies. Not supported, not
necessarily the true mechanism. Which was my point - to make the title of the
article seem correct, they whitewashed that entire mechanism. "The Price of
Life Is Death" is clickbait in that sense.

