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I'm not sure I understand the distinction between the arms race and merry-go-round models of male-female competition. The former concept seems to indicate that
by RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I'm not sure I understand the distinction between the arms race and merry-go-round models of male-female competition. The former concept seems to indicate that gender dominance is a zero-sum game, whereas the latter seems to indicate that dominance swings back and forth among the competitors. In other words, they don't appear to be in competition.
- gwern 15y agoI understood it as a question of how many strategies/antidotes are retained. Do the males specialize in only a few poisons at any one time, and so the females also specialize in a few antidotes, and new poisons are developed and old ones lost? Or do males release all developed poisons up to that point, and so the females have to manufacture all known antidotes, with no poisons being lost when new ones are developed? (Think of a modern military; they have fighter jets, yes, but they also still have the age-old weapons of knives and swords.)
- sesqu 15y agoThat's how I understood it as well, but it seems to conflict with the researchers not being able to pick between hypotheses. If one hypothesis has the female growing their arsenal of antidotes, that is incompatible with the result that past males caused more deaths in future females. Since they didn't reject either hypothesis, neither can have been that.
- RyanMcGreal 15y agoThank you for a very clear, helpful explanation!