Abstract
A lesson in evolutionary theory can be drawn from the work of Rick Charnov, who transformed Fisher’s sex ratio theory into sex allocation theory, but unfortunately, the lesson has not spread far enough. The lesson is that costs as well as frequencies need to be included. That is so whether we are talking about evolutionary ecology (e.g., density dependence), social evolution (e.g., sexual selection), origins, an extended evolutionary synthesis, multilevel selection, or whatever. The two dimensions can be expressed in a variety of ways—investing as well as spending, quality as well as quantity, costs as well as frequencies, and somatic as well as reproductive functions, for example. Both are needed everywhere in evolutionary theory.
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Acknowledgments
This article is based on a talk delivered by the author virtually to the 2021 semiannual meeting of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology, sponsored in that year by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (Cold Springer Harbor, NY, USA). The author would like to thank attendees of the presentation and, as always, Gail Greer.
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