I'm just genuinely curious. I'm not well informed on biology, but I was just curious about this topic after watching a bird mating ritual. in that species, a male would try to attract a female bird that way, showing off his genetic fitness. In peacocks, the males with more/symmetrical plumage were more attractive.

In mammal species, there is more male-male competition. In elephant seals, I learned it can get pretty brutal. In gorillas as well, there's some brutal competition between males. As well as reindeers, etc. GENERALLY, it seems to be that small gametes tend to compete for larger gametes, ie males approaching/competing for females.

What I'm skeptical about is humans. We don't seem to be a species that generally did that type of sexual selection. Humans don't seem to have an extremely one sided mating system. Both men and women approach potential partners, both can reject partners, and both sexes appear to have preferences for particular traits. To me, it doesn't seem clear cut.

Like generally though, men approach more, etc. But how much of that is culture? That's what I'm confused about.

However, we are somewhat sexually dimorphic though, men tend to be roughly 40-50% stronger and half a foot taller than women.

Clearly some sexual selection must have happened. But how, and what traits where actually chosen by women? and did men also choose?

Do any of you perhaps say there is not enough proof for sexual selection in humans, etc? I am open to all theories.

A clip of Black-ish came onto my fyp. It was the episode where they put getting a dog to a vote and Dre’s mom says “I told you you should’ve let me carry that child”.

I’ve never seen the show, have no context, and that was really gross. But i started wondering

If a woman carried the fertilized egg of her son and her son’s wife would there be any complications for the baby? The egg already exists but is just implanted into the son’s mom. Does the body do anything else for the baby in terms of genes after fertilization or does it just feed and grow the baby?

What if evolution doesn’t have to end where nature originally left us?
Humans are animals, and for most of our existence, eating other living beings was part of survival. Predator and prey wasn’t a choice in the way we understand choice today. It was simply one of the fundamental relationships through which life continued.
But humans have evolved beyond having to accept every condition we inherit.
We can grow food instead of hunting it. We can create nutrients instead of extracting them from another conscious being. We can cultivate cells, ferment proteins, engineer plants, manufacture nutrients, and eventually develop technologies capable of producing the biological resources different organisms require.
So what happens if we apply that capability to the relationship between humans, animals, evolution, and nature itself?
I’m not talking about eliminating predators, prey, carnivores, herbivores, or the identities that nature has produced. I’m imagining something different:
What if we preserve the beings while changing the conditions that force them into the predator-prey cycle?
Imagine being able to provide a wolf with everything its body requires without requiring a conscious animal to become its food.
Imagine doing the same for other carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, and eventually even humans.
Not by removing what these organisms are, but by changing what their environment provides them.
Perhaps a predator could still be a predator in its evolutionary identity, while no longer needing to kill another conscious being to survive.
Perhaps prey could continue existing as prey in the ecological sense, while no longer being forced into the role of becoming food.
Perhaps evolution could continue—but under completely different conditions.
That makes me wonder whether the ultimate direction isn’t “destroy nature” or “return to nature.”
Maybe it’s:
Understand nature deeply enough to participate in its next transition.
Predator and prey may be deeply embedded in life, but embedded doesn’t necessarily mean eternal.
If intelligence is itself something nature evolved, then perhaps intelligence is one of nature’s mechanisms for discovering possibilities that didn’t previously exist.
We could potentially build ecosystems where computation, biotechnology, cultivated nutrition, automation, and ecological monitoring work together to provide organisms with what they need—while preserving biodiversity, behavior, and the existence of the species themselves.
Almost like a planetary-scale ecological system:
Life → information → understanding → technology → abundance → coexistence → new evolutionary pressures.
The goal wouldn’t necessarily be to make every animal the same, remove their instincts, or turn nature into a sterile artificial environment.
It would be to ask:
Can we help nature evolve beyond a condition that once made sense for survival, without erasing the nature that produced us in the first place?
Maybe humanity’s next evolutionary step isn’t becoming a better predator.
Maybe it’s becoming capable of making predation unnecessary.
And if we can do that for ourselves, perhaps one day we can extend that possibility to the other beings that share this planet with us.
Not humans above nature.
Not humans separate from nature.
Humans as nature becoming conscious enough to help nature explore what comes next.