3 ms·
Well immunity to a sexual stimulant, that's the base for a third sex, a caste not participating in the egoistic battle for a self replicating future. A caste al
by Haga 8y ago
Well immunity to a sexual stimulant, that's the base for a third sex, a caste not participating in the egoistic battle for a self replicating future. A caste allowing for the creation of crowds without large constant infights, a crowd where the young may hide from fraternicide.. What seems like evolutionary dysfunction indirectly creates the ability for society, for a group dynamic that allows for complex stable states. And even though it's risky, it may give the whole species a benefit.
- gwern 8y agoIt's not clear that catnip's nepetalactone has anything to do with sexual functions (that's not very solid speculation by researchers, and less well founded than for, say, valerian); it doesn't seem to correlate with gender or neuter status; even if it did, it doesn't exist in the wild in order to affect cat populations in the first place (catnip grows wild in only a tiny fraction of domestic cat or the original wildcat ranges and varies dramatically across _Felidae_ anyway); and even if it did affect sex in the wild, wildcats are not particularly social creatures in the first place and the rare 'cat colony' is largely a human creation; and even if it did affect cat colony, 'group selection' like that of species requires unusual and very delicate conditions, otherwise it just collapses into individual selection on 'selfish genes'.