Good genes new name for sexy sons???

Steve Gangestad was here at UT this week and gave about the same talk he gave last year at FAU. He also gave our seminar a new in-press paper at JPSP to read (about women's mate preference shifts across the menstrual cycle). He presented some of the data from that paper in his talk but basically these results show that women prefer men who are confrontative, arrogant, attractive (etc) when fertile and do not prefer men who are faithful, intelligent, kind (etc). Well...I started thinking about this...if women want these men when they are fertile, they are obviously attempting to produce offspring with these men. And these are traits that researchers have termed markers of "good genes". But they are only good genes for male offspring who can short-term mate. So how are is this theory different from sexy sons? I asked Gangestad what he thought and got a round-about answer. Then I asked him, "Well you certainly wouldn't want these traits in your daughters would you?" (particularly arrogance and confrontative personalities) and he said no. So I said "well then it seems like to me if you don't want these traits in daughters, these women are trying to get good STM genes for their male offspring, which seems like sexy sons to me." And he summed it up by saying more research is needed.

So I guess the point of all this is...what do you guys think? I'm certainly not denying the research that shows that women drastically shift their preferences when they are fertile, but I guess what I want to know is, are they choosing then to have male offspring who will be good at STM? And what then about their female offspring? (Or I guess I'm also asking...am I totally crazy and way off-base here? ha ha)

Entertainment for Evolutionists

So back when I had time to waste, as an undergrad, my roommates and I loved to play Sims--to play "god" with other people's lives. And now, apparently, we can all be god (or natural selection ;) in a video game, Spore, where you evolve from a single cell organism all the way to an interplanetary traveler. It sounds a little goofy, but kinda cool, because you have to use your "DNA points" (or reproductive success) to "mutate" and adjust your features to fit a particular environment. Anyway, just thought y'all might find it of interest. You can watch an entertaining little demo here, or catch the interview I caught here (click on "intelligent design"). It'll be a merry christmas for all the little evolutionists out there. ;)

Dawkins Dawkins everywhere!

So he was on the Colbert Report, he's on myspace, he's been on NPR...and now he's been mocked on South Park! I'm sure the episode will turn up on YouTube or you can probably see clips of it on Comedy Central's webpage. Basically, Ms(r) Garrison refuses to teach evolution to his class because he doesn't believe it (he says we are the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with retarded fish frogs) and so the principal brings in Richard Dawkins to explain evolution. Of course he promotes his atheism, converts Ms. Garrison to atheism and apparently changes the whole world. Go Dawkins Go! :)