/lit/ - Literature

>>17974189
>However most examples of retarded sexual selection are due to the exact opposite: a very safe environment. As soon as chad predators brought by Europeans came into the fray in those climates, the fancy looking animals were threatened with extermination while
Give some examples. Here's a dodo as a counter-example of "fancy looking animals" being threatened and also a great big list.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_bird_species_since_1500
>the actually functional remained.
Who defines what's actually functional and in what environment? Are you not a functional being, if after thrown into the middle of the ocean you inevitably drown?
>Using survival as an argument for fitness is begging the question
But that is specifically what fitness is. The ability to spread your genes is what being fit is all about. If having a fancy colored plume leads to more offspring, then that is fitness.