Very interesting thread. There are a couple of "big picture" thoughts I would like to share although they might have been better posted earlier in the thread.
Three laws of thermodynamics- easily remembered and understood as if they applied to a poker game. 1)YOU CAN'T WIN;2)YOU CAN'T BREAK EVEN 3)YOU CAN'T GET OUT OF THE GAME. Translates as 1)conservation of energy, you can't get more out of an exchange than you put in. 2) Some energy is always wasted in any energy transaction-why you can't build a perpetual motion machine. 3) You cannot reach absolute zero temperature- not really relevant to our discussion.
SURVIVAL OF THE SEXIEST-a concept from my evolutionary biology course in the past. BG cuckholding is a perfect example when it occurs. Those organisms that can inject their genes into the next generation in the largest numbers will constitute the following generations, no matter how much skulduggery is involved in doing so. Makes monogamy not a very good survival technique for human males given that our social safety net for raising children makes them superfluous for infant survival-where are those sabertoothed tigers anyway?
