I would say that there are tendencies or strategies which, statistically, lead to a good evolutionary outcome (that is, passing on your genes). However, these traits or tendencies are not inherently good or evil or anything, nor even inherently successful.

Let me speculate:

Male Gadwalls can have two routes to mating success: (1) they can form a strong pair-bond with a female, defend her fiercely from other males, and copulate with her, or (2) they can dispense with the effort of forming a pair bond, and instead try to mate with any female they can mount. I don't know duck physiology well, but let's assume that in the extreme of case (1), the male would end up fertilizing all of the eggs laid by one female, and that in the extreme of case (2), the male would fertilize one egg from each of several females.

Both of these approaches might result in a male being able to fertilize a similar number of eggs.

However, a pure case (1) approach might be more successful because male would help protect the female's welfare. At the extreme of case (2), (which is what you may have witnessed, Connie), the female suffers stress which could lead to lower productivity (including the extreme case of being killed). So one might think that, over time, males choosing strategy (1) would dominate the population.

But a male that has some balance between (1) and (2) might actually be much more successful that a pure (1) or a pure (2), since he might be able to fertilize most of the eggs with the female he is paired with, and some number of eggs from additional females. Depending on the underlying genetic mechanism, that might allow the type 2 tendency to remain in the gene pool, even though in its pure form, it can be detrimental.

Given this soup of conflicting tendencies, the typical birds who have a typical balance of the traits, will be tend to be the most successful. The extreme cases will be the least successful. Some of those extreme cases will be catastrophically unsuccessful, and the outcome will be both ugly and obviously counterproductive.

So an individual trait or tendency isn't inherently "good/successful" or "bad/unsuccessful", but some combinations of these traits are very bad.

Is an extreme type (2) male "evil"?

It's possible that the offspring of a type (2) male with a female who carries genes for overly type (1) males, might result in progeny who are "properly balanced". "Opposites attract" can be a successful genetic
strategy.

And if environmental conditions change, it's conceivable that only extreme type (2) behavior would allow the species to survive (hard to picture with this particular example, but common with other combinations of independent traits).

A classic example illustrating that morality and genetics don't mix is the sickle-cell gene. If you are homozygous for this trait, you typically die of sickle-cell anemia. However, if you are heterozygous, you have some protection against malaria. So, in places where there is a lot of malaria, and the sickle-cell trait is present in the population, the tendency is for most people to be heterozygous. They lose a quarter of their children to malaria and a quarter of their children to sickle-cell, but half of their children survive. Without that trait present in the population, there could be extremely high mortality due to malaria. Conversely, in the absence of malaria, sickle-cell trait is only a negative.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.marymoor.org/birding.htm
== http://www.marymoor.org/BirdBlog.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net


From: Connie Sidles
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 9:28 AM
To: tweeters
Subject: [Tweeters] a question


Hey tweets, as I work to write my new book about the Fill, I thought of a question I would like to throw out to you (hoping it's not too far off-topic):
Is nature morally black-and-white, or are there moral shades of gray? Or are there no morals at all, and if so, is there good and evil?


Example: Two days ago I watched four male Gadwalls gang up on a lone female and attempt to mate with her. One male would mount her and push her head underwater, meanwhile trying to fight off the other males. One male would eventually push off the copulating male and take his place. This went on and on. The female kept trying to escape (and to keep breathing), but she couldn't get away from so many males. The whole gang disappeared behind some bushes on Main Pond, so I don't know the outcome, but it wouldn't surprise me if the males had drowned the female.


Realizing that ducks aren't people, and that nature is "red in tooth and claw," still, what am I to make of this scene? Where is the good in such an action? Even evolutionary good.


Nature has laws. Were those male ducks breaking the law? I'd be interested in your thoughts. - Connie, Seattle


constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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From: Connie Sidles
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 9:28 AM
To: tweeters
Subject: [Tweeters] a question


Hey tweets, as I work to write my new book about the Fill, I thought of a question I would like to throw out to you (hoping it's not too far off-topic):
Is nature morally black-and-white, or are there moral shades of gray? Or are there no morals at all, and if so, is there good and evil?


Example: Two days ago I watched four male Gadwalls gang up on a lone female and attempt to mate with her. One male would mount her and push her head underwater, meanwhile trying to fight off the other males. One male would eventually push off the copulating male and take his place. This went on and on. The female kept trying to escape (and to keep breathing), but she couldn't get away from so many males. The whole gang disappeared behind some bushes on Main Pond, so I don't know the outcome, but it wouldn't surprise me if the males had drowned the female.


Realizing that ducks aren't people, and that nature is "red in tooth and claw," still, what am I to make of this scene? Where is the good in such an action? Even evolutionary good.


Nature has laws. Were those male ducks breaking the law? I'd be interested in your thoughts. - Connie, Seattle


constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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Tweeters mailing list
Tweeters at u.washington.edu
http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters