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You're getting natural selection backwards. Evolution quickly selects against reproduction or immediate survival failure, but this modification leads to succes

You're getting natural selection backwards. Evolution quickly selects against reproduction or immediate survival failure, but this modification leads to successful male offspring which makes the scenario trickier. Unless the modified mosquitoes are handicapped by something, they will be selected just like any other, as best fit metrics are superficial. Humans wouldn't be able to detect that a specific partner could only have male offspring unless it brought along visual defects. If the population survives for many generations with a significant population of defect males, if there is a physical characteristic in the defect males, and if that can be detected by a mutation present in some females - the UV marker maybe? - then the female population should slowly be replaced by ones that select against the defective male. That's a lot of ifs though.

wildmanx 6y ago
Then nature got natural selection backwards too. Mating discrimination was shown to be real. Theorizing is great. But once there is evidence the reaction needs to be to adjust the theory instead of arguing away the effects that have been observed since they are inconsistent with the theory. "You're getting it backwards" is exactly that.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  > Mating discrimination was shown to be real. Mating discrimination is real, but redefining "attractive" mates isn't just a single mutation that is implied in survivors like regular "survival of the fittest". Redefining behavior of a specifies is a hell of a lot more complicated, especially if it's not just a simple matter of making presence of a certain smell a turn-off. > Theorizing is great. And all we can do for a few years until we get the most recent results, all we can do to interpret them, and all we can do to iterate on them.
  - wildmanx 6y ago
    Right, and while interpreting them, we need to be cautious. Instead of seeing an effect and think "nah, doesn't fit my theory of natural selection, can't be, let's keep going" we should be more like "oh, this effect was not predicted by our theory, something fishy is going on, let's be cautious".

wildmanx 6y ago

Then nature got natural selection backwards too. Mating discrimination was shown to be real. Theorizing is great. But once there is evidence the reaction needs to be to adjust the theory instead of arguing away the effects that have been observed since they are inconsistent with the theory. "You're getting it backwards" is exactly that.

arghwhat 6y ago
> Mating discrimination was shown to be real. Mating discrimination is real, but redefining "attractive" mates isn't just a single mutation that is implied in survivors like regular "survival of the fittest". Redefining behavior of a specifies is a hell of a lot more complicated, especially if it's not just a simple matter of making presence of a certain smell a turn-off. > Theorizing is great. And all we can do for a few years until we get the most recent results, all we can do to interpret them, and all we can do to iterate on them.
- wildmanx 6y ago
  Right, and while interpreting them, we need to be cautious. Instead of seeing an effect and think "nah, doesn't fit my theory of natural selection, can't be, let's keep going" we should be more like "oh, this effect was not predicted by our theory, something fishy is going on, let's be cautious".