题目: THE ECONOMICS OF EVOLUTION: SONS OR DAUGHTERS?
摘要:One of the most commonly asked question when a woman is pregnant is whether the parents know if it is a boy or a girl. In humans you have an (almost) 50% chance of guessing the answer correctly. But why is this? Can you correctly explain why there are as many sons as daughters born in humans?
I will discuss the evolutionary principles that underlie the evolution of offspring sex ratios in animals. You might be intrigued to learn that offspring sex ratios can vary hugely across different species. Using basic economics ideas about costs and benefits, combined with game theory, evolutionary biologists can predict the conditions under which male-biased or female-biased offspring sex ratios will evolve. Even better, we can then test these theory-based predictions and show that they are surprisingly accurate. These findings provide some of the best evidence for a ’selfish gene’ approach to the study of evolution.This talk will highlight the world class theory-driven research conducted at the Australian National University. And if your goal is to carry out applied science to become a millionaire, I will suggest a way in which you could apply this seemingly esoteric sex ratio theory to food production.
当一个女人怀孕时，最常被问到的问题之一是父母是否知道孩子是男孩还是女孩。在人类中，猜对答案的几率几乎是50% 。但为什么会这样呢？你能正确地解释为什么人类出生的儿子和女儿一样多吗？
我将讨论动物后代性别比例进化的基本原理。你可能会好奇地发现，不同物种的后代性别比例差异很大。利用关于成本和收益的基本经济学观点，结合博弈论，进化生物学家可以预测出男性偏见或女性偏见的后代性别比例进化的条件。甚至我们可以检验这些基于理论的预测，并证明它们惊人地准确。这些发现为用“自私基因”方法研究进化提供了一些最好的证据。这个演讲将强调在澳大利亚国立大学进行的世界级的理论驱动的研究。如果你的目标是通过应用科学成为百万富翁，我会建议一种方法，你可以将这个看似神秘的性别比例理论应用到食品生产中。
报告人简介：Prof Michael Jennions澳国立理学部生物学院教授，博士生导师。博士毕业于牛津大学，目前主要研究慈鲷的亲代照料和配偶遗弃以及活鱼的生活史进化。
时间：2021年6月4日，星期一 14:30-15:30（Beijing）
地点：线上注册https://science.anu.edu.au/news-events/events/economics-evolution-sons-or-daughters
主办：山东大学澳国立联合理学院
澳大利亚国立大学理学部
