Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

494 | HOW THE MIND WORKSbenefits, debasing its value to everyone else. The race is on for the consequentialcreatures to cook up a display that is hard to counterfeit, forthe less consequential ones to become better counterfeiters, and for thethird parties to sharpen their powers of discrimination. Like paper currency,the signals are inimitably gaudy and intrinsically worthless, but aretreated as if they were valuable and are valuable because everyone treatsthem that way.The precious stuff behind the displays can be divided into dominance—whocan hurt you—and status—who can help you. They oftengo together, because people who can hurt you can also help you by theirability to hurt others. But it's convenient to look at them separately..Most people have heard of the dominance hierarchies, pecking orders,and alpha males that are widespread in the animal kingdom. Animals ofthe same species don't fight to the death every time they contest somethingof value. They have a ritualized fight or a show of arms or a staringmatch, and one backs down. Konrad Lorenz and other early ethologiststhought that gestures of surrender helped preserve the species againstinternecine bloodshed, and that humans were in peril because we lostthe gestures. But that idea comes from the fallacy that animals evolve tobenefit the species. It cannot explain why a truculent mutant that neversurrendered and that killed surrenderers would not walk over the competitionand soon characterize the species. The biologists John MaynardSmith and Geoffrey Parker came up with a better explanation by modelinghow the different aggressive strategies that animals might adoptwould stack up against each other and against themselves.Fighting every contest to the bitter end is a poor strategy for an animal,because chances are its adversary has evolved to do the same thing.A fight is costly to the loser, because it will be injured or dead and henceworse off than if it had relinquished the prize from the start. It also canbe costly to the victor because he may sustain injuries in the course ofvictory. Both parties would have done better if they had assessed whowas likely to win beforehand and if the underdog simply conceded. Soanimals size each other up to see who's bigger, or brandish their weaponsto see whose are more dangerous, or wrestle until it's clear who'sstronger. Though only one animal wins, both walk away. The loser con-