In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins denies handicap theory through natural selection, but handicap theory can be seen as a valid way to favor stronger genes in the process of sexual selection, as males with handicaps can be selected for by the environment.
Introduction
In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins argues for a theory of natural selection in which genes are the immutable agents of evolution, and the strongest genes survive because they are better adapted to their environment and have a higher chance of survival. Dawkins sees genes as the basic unit of biological evolution, meaning that the way genes act to replicate and reproduce themselves determines the behavior and characteristics of an organism. Sexual selection is also recognized as an environmental factor in Richard Dawkins’ theory of natural selection, because by selecting for males with more good genes than other individuals, a female can increase the survival of her offspring from mating with a male, and can perpetuate her own genes by combining her own genes with the male’s good genes.
This principle of sexual selection causes females to look for evidence of good genes in males who are potential mates for their genes. This evidence can also be thought of as part of the handicap theory of sexual selection, which suggests that females use this evidence to show off the strength of their genes by carrying some handicap from the environment. However, in The Selfish Gene, Dawkins uses natural selection to argue that handicaps are eliminated as a matter of survivability before they become a matter of sexual selection because they reduce adaptation to the environment. He also points out that most individuals on Earth do not have handicaps. This shows that Richard Dawkins is denying the handicap theory, which is part of his own admitted theory of sexual selection.
In this essay, I will show that the handicap theory that Richard Dawkins denies in The Selfish Gene is in fact part of his theory of natural selection by showing that the degree of difference between males varies depending on the environment, as females search for evidence of stronger males.
Dawkins’ rejection of the handicap theory
In the first edition of The Selfish Gene, Dawkins rejected the handicap theory outright, arguing that it has a fundamental contradiction. Based on the book’s narrative, this view contradicts the theory of natural selection, which states that individuals intentionally select for unfavorable traits that reduce their chances of survival and pass them on to their offspring, so these traits are eliminated. However, in the trial, while explaining Grafen’s arguments against handicap theory, Dawkins appeared to agree with some aspects of handicap theory, but he nevertheless rejected Zahavi’s version of handicap theory as completely unacceptable, stating that only natural selection has the right to make judgments. Thus, it can be argued that Dawkins rejected handicap theory without any evidence.
Dawkins’ theory of natural selection
The traditional theory of natural selection is a theory that centers on the evolutionary mechanisms that lead to differences in species based on their environment, resulting in natural selection. Dawkins’ theory of natural selection similarly recognizes environmental variation. However, Dawkins sees the objects of selection as genes, not species. Genes are the same when they are passed from parent to offspring, so they can be viewed as objects with a constant identity, which makes them more deserving of being the unit of natural selection than individuals, or species, whose identity changes during reproduction. In this case, a gene can probably be defined as a short piece of chromosome between a cistrone and a chromosome.
The selfishness of an individual is consequently not the selfishness of its species, but rather the selfishness of the genes it carries. A gene has alleles that represent opposing traits for the trait it represents. The selfishness of a gene can be thought of as its ability to compete directly with these alleles to increase its own probability of survival within the gene pool.
In order to adapt to an environment, it is important for a set of genes to play a role, which Richard Dawkins illustrated with the example of rowers. In rowing, multiple athletes sit in the same boat. We can think of the relationships between competing athletes in the same role as alleles, and teammates in the same boat as gene sets. This allows us to see that along with excellence in a single gene, selection is based on excellence within a gene set.
Sexual selection refers to the strategy of selecting for males. If we substitute the selfishness of genes into this strategy, we can interpret it as follows. Genes in females are also selfish and want to perpetuate their own genes. Therefore, females want to select for strong genes in males that will perpetuate their own genes. In the process of looking for evidence of these genes, certain criteria arise among females, and males that do not meet these criteria are not selected. As a result, this process of sexual selection can be viewed as part of natural selection, where genes are selected based on environmental factors – the selection criteria of females – from the perspective of males.
Zahavi’s handicap theory
During the process of sexual selection, females look for clues of strong genes in males. For example, a male with a gene for developing muscles will be physically large or bulging with developed muscles. However, if we reverse the process of selecting a mate based on the outward evidence of individuals with these strong genes, it would be advantageous for males to select for those who appear to be strong instead of those who are actually strong. Zahavi argued that handicap theory allows us to distinguish between individuals who are actually strong and those who merely mimic their appearance through handicap.
According to handicap theory, handicaps exist to weed out these deceptive males. By intentionally having these handicaps, males advertise to females that they have genes that are hardy enough to survive in spite of their handicaps. For example, the colorful tail feathers of a male peacock make it easier for predators to locate the peacock, and the fact that the male peacock is alive after taking this risk suggests that he has hardy genes that can protect him from the threat of predation. In other words, using handicaps as evidence of hardiness is an issue in handicap theory.
As this selection continues, the genes of females who select for males with handicaps will become more frequent in the gene pool. As a result, other superior genes, other than the handicap gene, will be passed on to the offspring, and the number of males with handicaps will also increase due to the influence of these genes, increasing the frequency of the handicap gene in the gene pool. The result is that evolution will favor the development of handicaps.
How Dawkins rejects the handicap theory
Dawkins rejects the handicap theory based on the theory of natural selection, which states that genes that favor survival are selected by nature. According to natural selection, individuals with traits that decrease their chances of survival should be eliminated, so males with handicaps should also be eliminated. Therefore, Dawkins argues that females selecting for males with handicaps violates natural selection, and that handicaps are genetic traits that should be eliminated according to natural selection.
Dawkins uses the example of walruses to refute the handicap theory. Walruses acquire and defend their harems by defeating all males who try to invade them. By consistently holding the position, the owner of the harem proves that he has stronger genes than other males, and females hope to bind their genes to these males to increase the chances of their offspring surviving. Dawkins points out that this allows males to provide evidence of their hardiness genes by holding positions that allow them to show off their hardiness genes relative to other males, even if they don’t act as if they are handicapped. In other words, he argues that there are mechanisms of sexual selection that are more advantageous in terms of adaptation to the environment than handicap, and therefore the handicap theory is wrong.
Dawkins argues that apart from genetic superiority, the handicap theory is wrong because we have failed to develop a mathematical model to explain it. In order to develop a mathematical model, you need to figure out the relationship between the factors that determine survival and viability. This relationship allows you to test the validity of a new theory of evolution by looking at changes in population numbers, and the failure to develop a mathematical model means that when handicaps are plugged into the model, populations go extinct.
Reconciling natural selection and handicap theory
Dawkins rejects handicap theory because it denies the logic of nature selecting for stronger genes. However, if we break down the environment in which sexual selection takes place, we can see that handicap theory is a way for sexual selection to intentionally create differences between males that would otherwise not be noticeable due to the abundance of the surrounding environment.
The idea is that females select for males based on differences in appearance that are caused by the males’ stronger genes. The reason we see a bulging body as evidence of a large amount of muscle is because of the differences that males with these genes have from other males. When a population of individuals with these traits survives, the nutritional differences or differences in athleticism between males with strong genes and those without are usually so stark that it’s easy for females to tell them apart. An example of this is the walruses Dawkins cites. In walruses, males compete with each other for harems, so males with stronger genes have a clear advantage, so females don’t have to make an effort to distinguish between strong males and deceitful males; the distinction between them occurs naturally. Most individuals on Earth do not live in environments where both males with hardy genes and males without hardy genes have access to abundant nutrition, so the above process is likely to follow.
But consider the case where individuals are given a stable environment in which to live. In these environments, the number of males in good nutritional condition is high, and the differences in nutritional status that would have previously been naturally distinguished by females become less pronounced. An example of this is mountain goats, which are less at risk from natural enemies because they live in herds. The division of labor that comes with herding also means that food is much more readily available to them than it is to other individuals. This makes it easier for the majority of males to take advantage of the nutritional benefits, and the differences between individuals become less pronounced. For individuals in this state, existing theories cannot provide a way for females to select for stronger males; the absence of such a way is genetically selfish for both females who want to pass on their genes through the male’s stronger genes and males who want to spread their own genes.
The solution to this problem is the handicap theory, which, as mentioned earlier, theorizes that males are intentionally handicapped to make their other hardy genes more attractive to females. In the absence of any other way to distinguish between males with physical traits acquired through toughness genes and males with genes that only code for these physical traits, males have only one way to advertise their own toughness genes. Thus, by intentionally employing handicaps, males indirectly demonstrate the superiority of their genes. In this case, selecting for a handicap gene does not violate Dawkins’s theory of natural selection. As Dawkins states, the excellence of a single gene, toughness, is not determined by the phenotype of that gene alone. The excellence of a gene is determined by the result of its interaction with other gene populations, such as a rowing team, and a gene with a superior phenotype as a single trait can be judged as a gene with a high probability of excellence. Based on this, when we look at the handicap genes advocated by handicap theory, we might think that the traditional handicap is an inferior gene because it does not interact significantly with other genes. However, in the cases covered by handicap theory, these handicaps serve to make the traits of other superior genes in the population more attractive to females. For example, in mountain goats, the closer to the alpha male, the larger the horns. This in turn increases the selfishness of other genes, so the handicap gene is treated as a superior gene by its interaction with the population, as Dawkins says when explaining the theory of natural selection. This leads to an increase in the number of individuals with this handicap, and we can argue that the handicap theory is part of the theory of sexual selection.
If we think about a mathematical model based on this view, we can see that the superiority of a handicap depends on the environment in which the individual is placed. Therefore, since the handicap is affected by the environment, we will have a variable for the environment, such as the number of individuals in the population. However, it is possible that the mathematical model that Dawkins presents as evidence is missing this consideration, and therefore the model fails. For example, it is possible that the above argument only addresses the case where a population living in a poor environment cannot afford to adopt a handicap, and therefore would go extinct if they did. Therefore, the subtitle of Dawkins’ mathematical model remains unclear, and does not provide a basis for rejecting the handicap theory.
Conclusion
Dawkins rejected the handicap theory because he believed that having a handicap is a self-inflicted adaptation to the environment, and he argued that there is a theory of sexual selection that is more favorable than the handicap theory, citing walruses as an example. However, when we look at the context in which sexual selection occurs, we see that the handicap theory can be seen as part of the sexual selection theory.
The key to sexual selection is the difference between males with hardy genes and males without hardy genes. The more pronounced this difference is, the less females need to validate males, and the less males need to intentionally appeal to females. However, in nutritionally rich environments, genetic differences are less pronounced among males, so to compensate, males are considered to have a handicap. This handicap makes the male’s other stronger genes more appealing and therefore reevaluated for superiority. As a result, the handicap gene is recognized as superior, allowing evolution in the direction of having a handicap. The upshot is that females will select males based on the superior traits of males that survive with a handicap, which is a form of sexual selection and does not contradict the theory of natural selection.
The reason this process occurs is because of the selfishness of genes: both survival and reproduction are selfish behaviors, and most individuals will survive for a long time so they can reproduce for an equally long time, so survival is their primary goal. However, if survival is guaranteed for a long time, they will look for other ways to perpetuate their genes, and as a result, ways to appeal to females are studied. One of the consequences of this is the existence of handicaps: individuals selfishly find ways to perpetuate their genes based on their environment, and they do this even while accepting handicaps.
Dawkins denied handicap theory, but handicap theory is part of the theory of sexual selection, which is essentially the same as natural selection. Therefore, Dawkins’ denial of handicap theory cannot be accepted.
