Nature’s Mating Dance: Do Females Prefer Honest Males?

I will be on tour of North America, UK & EU talking about my latest book, religion, life on earth and beyond. I will be joined on stage by a range of friends and foes on stage. The events will include a Q&A and a limited meet-and-greet. You can get your tickets here: richarddawkinstour.com/
#richarddawkins #richarddawkinstour
Why are there two sexes, and how is the balance between the two maintained in evolution? The riddle is one that baffled Chales Darwin. He explicitly left it for later generations. It was eventually solved, with typical brilliance, by the great Ronald Fisher.
The fundamental sexual inequality is an economic one. Eggs are hugely larger than sperm. From this much follows. Why do peacocks have such a ridiculously large, ornamental “tail”, when it obviouly must put them in danger? Do females go for male beauty for beauty’s sake (as Darwin thought, and Fisher explained)? Or are males advertising some useful quality (as AlfredWallace, Darwin's co-discoverer of natural selection, insisted). Is the peacock’s tail favoured in spite of being a handicap? Or could it be favoured precisely becuse it is a costly handicap? Does it have to be costly as a certificate of honesty? Do females only go for honest males?
This is a talk I gave on a ship crusing the Galapagos archipelago.
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I will be on tour of North America, UK & EU talking about my latest book, religion, life on earth and beyond. I will be joined on stage by a range of friends and foes on stage. The events will include a Q&A and a limited meet-and-greet. You can get your tickets here: richarddawkinstour.com/

[@truepotential206]

Your voice is still a thing of beauty professor

[@ABARANOWSKISKI]

I'm going to be meeting Richard Dawkins in just a few days from now! Well, I don't know if we are personally going to meet, but I'm going to be attending a Richard Dawkins event in New York City, Brooklyn. I'm so looking forward to this! If I actually get a chance to interact with Mr. Dawkins in person, that is going to be a huge moment for me, and honour and a privilege, as Richard Dawkins is an intellectual hero of mine, and he had a big impact on my life, as I'm a former Creationist, who came to accept evolution & reality years ago, and Richard Dawkins played an important part in that. I would like to thank him in person, he changed my life in so many positive ways. Can't wait for the event!

[@meridianheights6255]

Good luck! I wish I could attend. Meeting Dawkins would be more exciting than meeting Elvis, for me.

[@fullup91]

So, what do you believe now that you're no longer a creationist?

[@barbaragemin5117]

Enjoy the event and having a chance to speak to him even if it’s only a book signing, as it was for me. I had the chance to thank him at least, and he was as kind and gentlemanly as you’d expect. A hero of mine too.

[@barbaragemin5117]

As fascinating as always ! Looking forward to the next talk, rarely miss one.

[@ebena.k.8032]

Nothing creationism ​@@fullup91

[@meridianheights6255]

This is just so fascinating. Halfway through I wasn't sure I was grasping it for a moment, But Dawkins being the great teacher that he is brought it all together in a way that makes sense to me. I'm just a layman with a love of biology. Dawkins has taught me so much. Thank you, Professor Dawkins.

[@tercertwin]

Dear Mr. Dawkins, Few years ago I read a book called THE EVOLUTION OF BEAUTY written by the evolutionary biologist and ornithologist Richard O. Prum. The text is at its core a defense of Darwin's idea about sexual selection, which, according to Prum, has been historically under attack because it forces us to recognize that our specie is NOT the only one capable of develoing beauty standards and that aesthetic judgements (subjective experiences) take part in the process of evolution. I wonder if you would consider inviting this author to you podcast. I'm sure it could be a rather enlightening conversation. Greetings from Mexico.

[@charlottewilhelmsen7511]

Please do more of these lectures. So enlightening and yet possible for laypeople like me to understand.

[@warrenchinn4114]

Superb. Clear, interesting, useful. Many thanks

[@gavinharvey7523]

Thank you for your lecture and insight.

[@HecticGlenn]

As always a great explanation of sexual selection! I've always wondered about the genetic tug of war between phenotypic features where sexual selection characteristics with limited utility are in conflict with things like camoflage / mimicry.

[@n3k0lein]

This topic is wonderfully observable within my cockatiel flock.. As always great video sir.

[@morgenmofo]

Absolutely brilliant. I also like the way this highlights the beauty of the Israelite's wit.

[@joshyman221]

Thanks as always. I hope to meet you in Cambridge one day.

[@seans9203]

Terrific Richard - thanks - cheers, Sean

[@richardlankas2050]

Such an amazing communicator, always amazed at your unique ability to communicate really complex concepts in really, really simple terms. Thank you for sharing, Prof. Dawkins.

[@ohalloranjames]

i love the gear keep it coming folks

[@mafaldamatos8970]

Professor Dawkins, what about pheromones? Do females tend to choose males through chemical smell? Thank you

[@u.s.navy_pete4111]

Great lecture by the great Dawkins!

[@Scandimania]

This is delightful to listen to. I am thankful that I discovered Dawkins

[@user-wx7hc8vf1l]

Such a cute shirt, such a cute professor

[@eniggma9353]

Was this a lecture on a cruise ship? Where could one seek such luxuries? Great stuff

[@eurwentrumper1946]

Good morning there. Honest even if it hurts, not for everyone. I remind you that somebody like Prince Phillip had 2 heart surgeries and died at 99 to name a few. J. Goodall is another honest Aries.

[@30noir]

Evolution isn't really interested in what happens to you after you've had kids, though. If you don't have kids, you're irrelevant.

[@killerall5312]

captivating once again

[@joedennehy386]

Excellent

[@adamayyad4744]

I love those speeches

[@ManiM-kw6jz]

Fascinating ❤

[@StevenVanOver]

Educational (of course) but also gripping and thought-provoking. Typical Dawkins. Thank you.

[@coinkritik]

and also Guppy Experiment The Sexual Selection in Guppies virtual laboratory simulates John Endler's 1980 classic experiment with guppy fish demonstrating the balance of sexual and natural selection processes. In guppies, females prefer to mate with males that have lots of spots, but those males are more easily seen by predators.

[@juliehowe3]

Great talk, but the reflection of the audience moving around is distracting. It annoys me that they don’t just sit still and listen, enthralled. They do, after all, have the great privilege of being there!!

[@tnekkc]

I had a summer job in 1975 building house foundations. I was tan and muscular. Women were attracted, but I was tired.

[@bobgreenfield9158]

You weren't a super stud, then!

[@louisehaley5105]

17:33- do similar genes affect how humans are attracted to the opposite sex ?

[@Juka161]

Well like the song of Rod Stewart “Some guys have all the luck 🍀 “

[@bobgreenfield9158]

He is about 5' 3". He has had thousands of girls. Under normal circumstances he would be sexless. His wealth and status in the music industry brought {or bought} him woman!

[@davecannabis]

its so good to hear someone say "zo-ologist" instead of "zoo-ologists" like several other people i like to watch

[@WayneLynch69]

As with all higher living things; 'they are attracted to that, whatever form, which is above them on the social hierarchy.'

[@videowhat614]

Nah. Females typically look for that, but men are almost entirely focused on beauty. Obviously because men have historically been the ones required to pursue.

[@IcyWun]

I am so disappointed by Richard's recent "i don't want to be on camera" video. I can't repeat what was said so look for yourselves. Such a let down.

[@colinandrews1118]

We are all universe beings !!! All life exists on our world 🌎 because universal elements allow us to the sun energized world 🌍 orbiting the sun with our moon !!! So the universe being as a whole is giving us life and promoting our lives !!! So therefore we should all try and treat each other with love ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ and kindness on lifes universal journey!!! Lots of universal love everyone Colin Hope you're keeping well Richard love Colin

[@user-xl8ku6uj3v]

❤❤❤

[@11-AisexualsforGod-11]

Nature has been subject to intelligent design as in artificial selection since the dawn of humans

[@levlevin182]

Is this a question of determinism? If it is, That is just fine by me. Please continue. However, Everybody love's happiness!

[@fionagregory9147]

No apostrophe needed.

[@martinbennett2228]

Males are much more expendable than females. It is an evolutionary advantage, if survival of the fittest is more challenging for the males. We have to consider why sexual reproduction at all, given that asexual reproduction is more efficient for population growth. The answer to that is the diversity upon which selection can act. If males with deleterious genetics are more readily eliminated, this becomes an efficient mechanism for improving the gene pool. It is culturally present in our own species: historically it is men, rather than women who have gone to war; the expression 'women and children first' has a survival value. This does not negate the arguments about sexual selection, but rather provides the underlying basis.

[@gravitheist5431]

They prefer the illusion

[@SheeplessShepherd]

Two of my children were born on the same day, my third, the same day as my niece, coincidence? OK 😂

[@oranges557]

What would be the point for a creator in giving your kids the same birthday? Ita a useless coincidence

[@SheeplessShepherd]

@@oranges557 It hints at design imo. There is lots of coincidences, you can only have so many coincidences.

[@oranges557]

@@SheeplessShepherd it doesnt hint at design AT ALL. There are billions of people who didnt experience that. When there are 8 billion people, things like these will happen. How can you be so naive?

[@SheeplessShepherd]

Seek and you shall find. When you truly realise that it's unknowable then you'll know

[@kennypowers1945]

I think humans aren’t as simplistic as animals so being muscular or have big breasts etc aren’t enough for all to attract partners

[@__-tz6xx]

They are to me when there is nothing about the social aspect of someone is attractive to me. I live in a an area where most people don't share the same views and interests as I do so my attraction is reliant on physical appereances and how much I could tolerate them. It sucks.

[@xiki1506]

Los psicópatas ganan

[@Azozeo]

I want a child of knowledge.regardless of gender

[@iblard]

​​Is it heard of males checking the health of females?

[@debralittle1341]

Only to a point. Muscle bound men look terrible.

[@RichardTasgal]

Why only two sexes? What has evolution never thrown up a species with fertile xx, xy, and yy individuals? Or is there somewhere? Could there have been in the past?

[@TuntunGamer]

Evolution might have produced this chromosome combination at some point but it would be defective / abnormal and such would likely not be something that would carry on unless there was some sort of evolutionary advantage to it. To say male / female is to describe or represent the vast amount of likely sexes that reproduce. It also correctly describes those chromosomes that you commented as they still would be considered male / female by virtue of the fact they have reproduced, they would simply be identified as chromosomal abnormalities.

[@RichardTasgal]

@@TuntunGamer There is not a single evolutionary niche on earth in which an additional sex (say, yy) comprised of generally healthy fertile individuals would not have advantages for the species? Who knows what they might do. Perhaps under some conditions, the individuals are mostly xx and xy and just a few yy, and then under favorable conditions the species might switch to mostly xy and yy and just a few xx. Or another dynamic. It's a big world out there. Some niche.

[@DM-ql6ps]

Because sex cells, eggs and sperm are haploid and animals themselves are diplod. Thus our genomes can easily be split in two and recombined with another to create a new diploid individual. A system with more than two sexes would require a genome that could easily be split and then recombined in a different number. Since sex cells are half of the genome, each, each animal has two parents. Of course, that is just the nuclear DNA that spilts. Mitochondrial DNA doesn't split and can't recombine - thus can only come from one parent. So each animal has two parents: one that donates 1/2 of the nuclear genome and one that donates 1/2 of the nuclear gemone plus the mitochondrial DNA. Sperm cells have just a few mitochondria that snap off and die during fertilization. Egg cells have lots of mitochondria to fuel the embryos growth. The average sperm cell has less than 100 mitochondria, the average egg cell has 100,000 (why egg cells are so huge compared to sperm). A typical body cell has 300 - 400. Thus sperm cells are cheap to make but don't last long and eggs are expensive to make but live for decades.

[@DM-ql6ps]

Of course there are other sex determination systems, but they all also produce two sexes where one sex produces lots of small cheap gametes and the other produces a few big expensive ones. Birds use ZW where males are ZZ and females are ZW. Many reptiles use temperature determination. Many fish are sequential hermaphrodites where they are first one sex and then the other (but at no point do they ever produce a third gamete. They still produce either sperm or eggs)

[@RichardTasgal]

@@DM-ql6ps So, if I understand (it's not my field, so please bear with me), that explains why it would be a huge leap to have a sexes based on a genome that splits into three or more -- not natural for a helix. But the example I gave (not that this is the only possibility in the universe) had a genome that splits into two.

[@carolynhogarth2725]

You know about the cells and neurons of the brain, is it a good thing to have sequences that attack the optimum brains functions. Do you think neurodegeneration would be a factor? Do you think the mitochondria with ATP's depleting, might cause the liver's toxic protein to misfold and cause two foot long clots that are proven to come out of the veins. Whether you call it arterial disease or embalmers disease, still it is caused by covid 19. Fact.

[@--Snowy--]

Why do females prefer snowmen? 😊

[@oriel9347]

No.

[@11-AisexualsforGod-11]

But why would you want to "win" if the prize was ugliness? This is why humans practice central planning and artificial selection

[@isabelc2131]

I don't like the fact that this video starts with telling the audience that they should pay up to see something they've been waiting for on time.

[@ursulageorgeson7086]

Well this explains a lot of my daddy issues.

[@tangerinetangerine4400]

How do you mean?

[@justinbyrge8997]

"Do women prefer honest men?" 🤔 No. They prefer a financially successful man. To the point that they are willing to succumb to and put up with vile and disgusting and even harmful behavior in order to secure a financially successful man. Caveat: this answer does not reflect the view of ALL women, nor can any answer do so. This is a generalization based on the data as well as what most women themselves admit to. And as with any generalization, there are outliers. If you happen to be one of those outliers who are reading this, calm down, you've been seen and noted.

[@TheMiddleWayWithRay]

Everything is dualistic.

[@jameswright...]

Any evidence for that? Because all of science says there's no evidence for duelism, quite the opposite in fact.

[@-Thauma-]

Please elaborate.

[@TheMiddleWayWithRay]

@-Thauma- The way we experience life is in a two sided way. There is subject and object. I'm the subject, everything else is the object. Now, we project that way of experiencing on everything. Front/back, left/right, up/down, good/bad, science vs spirituality, Democrats vs Republicans, etc.

[@jadenalmeida8592]

Bro put Andrew tates image in the thumbnail 😂

[@lachlanbrown3112]

W

[@fionagregory9147]

Since when has W meant in?

[@lachlanbrown3112]

@@fionagregory9147 W means win. A Dawkins upload is a win. Therefore W

[@fionagregory9147]

@@lachlanbrown3112 thanks 👍

[@jonatasmachado7217]

Evolutionary speculation and just-so stories...

[@chadsensei-ue6jn]

Of course they prefer honesty. Trust is the basis of all healthy relationships.

[@JesyB2023]

In our understanding of reality, there are no absolute objective truths. Even something seemingly concrete, like a table, is merely a materialized possibility. Science, while valuable, doesn’t provide definitive answers. We have the power to alter a table’s composition, formulas, and governing laws. Everything is malleable. Evidence, often considered objective, is still subject to interpretation. It represents a conclusion, but that conclusion isn’t inherently objective either. Under different circumstances, an alternative conclusion could emerge. Nothing is set in stone. The conclusions drawn from scientific disciplines-physics, chemistry, and more-are all susceptible to new perspectives. What exists is just one among countless potential realities.

[@MrMark595]

Word salad, gobblykook, Deepak Chopra woo. Nonsense.

[@JesyB2023]

@@MrMark595 What you believe as truth will be obsolete in less than 100 years. So, why do you believe it?

[@JesyB2023]

@@MrMark595 ALL of your favorite scientific studies are polluted with all kinds of bias. In fact, they only serve to generate even more questions than definitive answers.

[@masti733]

Pass the bong this way, please. It must be good

[@JesyB2023]

@@masti733 Seriously, all of the people in this channel are smoking it. Yeah, objective reality, my a**. 😆😆😆🤥

[@goawayplzthnx]

Stupid title

[@davecannabis]

"Do Females Prefer Honest Males?", the answer is definitely no, females prefer males who say what they want to hear, thruthfulness has no bearing on it whatsoever

[@jameswright...]

Ever spoke to a woman? I'm pretty sure women want to hear both in one go... You know hearing what they want and like and it being the truth too... It is possible!

[@Debbie-henri]

You haven't been out with many women, have you?

[@jameswright...]

@@Debbie-henri I should have put in my post... Women are cool with things they don't like too, it's the honesty we all appreciate most and can deal with anything. But male or female we all prefer the truth to be things we like 😁

[@RaveyDavey]

Utter nonsense. They’re not a different species lol.

[@sananton2821]

Richard...do you not know what a comet is?

[@sananton2821]

No explanation touching on honesty was offered. Why not lie to make yourself seem healthier?

[@snehashispanda4808]

Monotheism (the doctrine or belief that there is only one God) is blamed as the instigator of ignorance, oppression, and violence. Monotheism has been a "totalizing discourse", often co-opting all aspects of a social belief system, resulting in the exclusion of "others". Monotheism is less pluralistic and thus less tolerant than polytheism, because monotheism stipulates that people pigeonhole their beliefs into one tenet. "Monotheism is irreconcilable with the existence in our nature of the instincts of benevolence" because it compels followers to devote themselves to a single Creator. The logic of monotheism ... yields little basis for tolerating other religions". Monotheism anesthetize the sense of wonder as if one were committed to a single line of thought by a cosmic legal contract".

[@blupandax7902]

If monotheism is “less tolerant” than polytheism due to having less gods, what does that mean for atheism who go one step further and say there are no gods at all? Monotheism is the middle ground between atheism and polytheism.

[@tangerinetangerine4400]

​@@blupandax7902monotheism and polytheism are equally delusional views based on wishful thinking, fear, ignorance and tradition. None of these can be described as middle ground in connection to atheism. Atheism is merely lack of belief. It doesn't profess anything beyond that. If an atheist is tolerant it's most likely because they are humanist or some other philosophy.

[@MacrossFaltenmeyer]

​@@blupandax7902 Flawed logic.

[@blupandax7902]

@@MacrossFaltenmeyer Prove it.

[@MacrossFaltenmeyer]

@@blupandax7902 monotheism is all about super mighty god that is everywhere around us, and he can do everything that smaller polytheist gods could. So I wouldn't call it "middle ground", especially when monotheist religions were generally even more critical towards atheists than polytheistic religions.

[@ALavin-en1kr]

All this to explain that animals operate by instinct alone. So, so, so, tired of Darwinism and to the human with reason being reduced to biology, to instinct, as if reason were an anomaly, Just as well animals do not have to know that their privacy is invaded. What does all this mean for the trans human now being considered. What part of our animal selves should be ditched and what parts should we maintain? What does it have to do with our future as we face infinite space, which when Pascal saw it said: these infinite spaces terrify me.

[@Gregoryismnz]

Money and looks, thats it- in order

[@fionagregory9147]

Hiya

[@HelpMeFindTheseSongs]

I'm a 38 year old single man so you already know I'm taking notes on this lecture! 😄

[@__-tz6xx]

🤣 I gave up on looking for a partner.

[@HelpMeFindTheseSongs]

@@__-tz6xx why?

[@bobgreenfield9158]

Work to be able to bench press 300 pounds.