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Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

> But the evolutionary mechanism behind this novelty is not adaptation by natural selection, in which only those who survive pass on their genes, allowing the species to become better adapted to its environment over time. Rather, it is sexual selection by mate choice, in which individuals pass on their genes only if they’re chosen as mates.

TFA has a weird definition for natural selection.

Evolution has no preferences and sexual selection is natural selection.

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> sexual selection is natural selection

It's a matter of definition, I think. Darwin made a distinction between natural selection and sexual selection,

> Sexual selection was first proposed by Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species (1859) and developed in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), as he felt that natural selection alone was unable to account for certain types of non-survival adaptations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

So the distinction the article here makes is a reasonable one with a long history. But more recently, the terms are often defined as non-distinct,

> Factors that affect reproductive success are also important, including sexual selection (now often included in natural selection) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

two sides of one coin, init? Edit: I mean, sexual selection is the pinhole of reproductive success, whereas other selective mechanisms are mediated by death, which is quite the opposite.

Agreed. This is more akin to evolution being stuck in a suboptimal (and perhaps a dead-end) local minima - but it is still natural selection as more pleasing features = survival on an individual scale.

Small aside: local minimum. Minima is plural (like datum/data).

Complex systems can spend a long time following gradient descent without reaching the local optimal. For all we know, it's features have other advantages, like scaring off predators.

Traits need to be considered with the ones they compete against. It's impossible to judge the bird in isolation.

Evolution happens because of natural selection. It is the narrative of natural selection and does not always have a happy ending. The subtitle of the article is just plain wrong. Of course natural selection explains "the too sexy birds", it just can't predict how long the evolutionary span will be.

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