Intelligent Design

Spooky action at a distance.

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A rather comprehensive study of the European vole has concluded that it is hard to know how “fit” genes gain predominance in a population because of what they term “sexual antagonism.” It turns out that when dominant males mate with females, the females that pass on the dominant gene have smaller litter sizes, while the females not passing on the dominant gene have larger litter size. Here’s what one of the authors had to say: “With sexual antagonism such as this, it’s sometimes hard to understand how different genes are maintained in the reproductive process, because if the beneficial effect is much stronger in one sex, one would assume that only the gene with best overall success should be maintained,” Read More ›