Femmelution?

The following was posted in a forum discussion over at Pete's Place. The original topic was population, but one thing leads, as always, to another. I weighed in a bit on the matter and felt it worthy of putting to print here.

"Do we even still have evolution? Curious what people think of this topic, as I am not sure if we really do have any significant natural selection any more, aside from that as plot devices in X-Men comics. Or perhaps this should be another thread..."

I found myself addressing the population issue not too long ago.

Regarding the mention of whether or not we (homo sapiens) are still subject to evolution...

I would argue that yes, we are. The manner of selection is a bit less brutal and the criteria have changed, but in general the process continues. You have to keep in mind that the time involved has to be measured (usually) on a geological scale. In a general sense though, you can point out to the rise of more social, cognitive humans among the larger population. The traits we've come to identify as 'desirable' (wealth, health and upward mobility) are generally found more prevalently in those of us better able to successfully interact with (in various ways) each other and take advantage of the technologies and techniques that increasingly run our society.

In other words, a Rolls Royce is the equivalent of a massive rack of antlers or a bird's bower.

Now admittedly I'm using male-aggressive references here. On the flip side, females are finding themselves in a similar, if different, boat. The thing is, most of the traits males seek out in females haven't changed significantly. We're still drawn to rumps & bumps. Some interesting traits that have changed in the field of male-desirable perception are behavioral. More guys are expressing interest in dynamic females. The altering of the gender-perception social matrix has made it more likely that aggressive (previously read THREATENING) females will breed successfully. In an interesting paradox however, whereas the behavior-acceptability has changed, the physical-acceptability has not. The potential result may be that increasingly aggressive females are going to realize that they are running up against a social-psychological wall where they will find their behaviors frustrated by increasingly 'femme' physicality.

Which raises another interesting line of thought. Has anyone else noticed that what are now often described as 'hyper-masculine' males are slowly leaving the scene? You can make jokes about the ascendence of the Metrosexual, but the truth is that females, no longer prisoners to the mating decisions of large, powerful males are electing smaller, leaner and (in many people's perception) more feminine mates. So if this trend proves accurate and breeds true, with both the physical and behavioral male traits being gradually bred out in favor of what may be redundant femininity, where do we wind up? Slender, less aggressive, more cerebral males and more aggressive, more cerebral hyper-feminine females?

The mind boggles. If nothing else, a reduction in species aggressiveness (keeping in mind that, statistically, the most aggressive female is less aggressive than the least aggressive male) could make larger, more concentrated populations somewhat more feasible