by Jerome du Bois
Science writer Carl Zimmer, at his new Loom, posts a beautiful tribute to the late great evolutionary biologist William Hamilton, who died in 2000, as he comments on a recent Biology Letters article about why autumn leaves change color:
He and [co-author Samuel] Brown proposed that a brilliant leaf was, like a peacock's tail, a signal. A peacock's tail takes a huge investment of energy, energy that could otherwise be diverted to fighting off parasites or surviving other stresses. A strong male can afford to use up this energy, which makes the tail an honest ad for its parasite-fighting genes. In the case of leaves, trees are not sending signals to other trees -- they are sending signals to tree-eating insects.
Now there is gathering support for this notion, as described in the article. This is the kind of deep, clever, inside-out thinking that makes studying evolution so exciting. And it's another of the thousands of strong strands that anchors Darwinism to reality "like Gulliver tied down in Lilliput," to use Daniel Dennett's memorable image.
Please go check out Mr. Zimmer's piece. As for me, I'll be thinking about William Hamilton -- not Dawkins, not Gould, not Wilson, not peacocks, not even Dennett -- while I'm raking through my brilliant red and yellow back yard tomorrow morning.
Posted by Jerome at December 18, 2003 05:12 PM | TrackBack