From John King
As a nonbiologist I have problems with some expressions of evolutionary
genetics. Your item on the mating behaviour of the flour beetle
(This Week, 10 April, p 12)
is a case in point: “sperm have evolved this trick to
counter the males’ ability to scoop them out of the females’ reproductive tract”
(my emphasis) and “Every male is trying to get the upper hand”.
Such anthropomorphism seems misleading. The evolutionary process is not the
result of a strategic plan to succeed in the next generation but the consequence
of changes in the past that have since produced numerical success.
I try to tell myself that it is a useful mental shorthand and I am worrying
unnecessarily that such anthropomorphism will compromise future understanding.
Perhaps someone who knows about these things can reassure me about this and the
survival implications of pedantry.
Wymondham, Norfolk
