et cetera

After copulation, male redback spiders (Latrodectushasselti; relatives of the “black widow” spider), often somersault into the female’s mouthparts and are eaten (Figure 11.3A). This suicidal behavior might be adaptive, because males seldom have the opportunity to mate more than once, and it is possible that a cannibalized male fathers more offspring. Maydianne Andrade (1996)¹ tested this hypothesis by presenting females with two males in succession, recording the duration of copulation, and using genetic markers to determine the paternity of the females’ offspring. She found that females that ate the first male with whom they copulated were less likely to mate a second time, so these cannibalized males fertilized all the eggs. Furthermore, among females that did mate with both males, the percentage of offspring that were fathered by the second male was greater if he was eaten than if he survived. (Figure 11.3B). Both outcomes support the hypothesis that sexual suicide enhances reproductive success. This example suggests that prolonged survival is not necessarily advantageous, and illustrates how hypotheses of adaptation may be formulated and tested.

Figure 11.3 (A) The small male redback spider somersaults into the large female’s mouthparts after copulation. (B) The proportion of eggs fertilized by the second male that copulated with a female was correlated with the duration of his copulation. On average, copulation by cannibalized males lasted longer than that by noncannibalized males. (A after Forster 1992²; B after Andrade 1996.)

(From Futuyma, Douglas J. 2009. Evolution, 2nd edition. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland MA, pp. 281–282).

1. Maydianne C. B. Andrade, “Sexual Selection for Male Sacrifice in the Australian Redback Spider”, in Science, 5 January 1996, Vol. 271, No. 5245, pp. 70–72. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.271.5245.70 [↩]
2. L. M. Forster, “The Stereotyped Behavior of Sexual Cannibalism in Latrodectus-Hasselti Thorell (Araneae, Theridiidae), the Australian Redback Spider”, in Australian Journal of Zoology, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 1–11. URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/ZO9920001 [↩]

This is a reprinted version of Ferenc Szabadváry, “Wilhelm Ostwald’s Happiness Formula”, in Journal of Chemical Education, Volume 42, Issue 12, December 1965, pp. 678–679. Translation by Ralph E. Oesper.

Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) was one of the outstanding personalities of chemistry. Though he made important discoveries such as his “dilution law” and his clear exposition of catalysis, his greatest accomplishment was perhaps his recognition of the relations between observations that had been made in the second part of the 19th century and his explanation of these connections. He brought together the findings of Guldberg and Waage, of J. W. Gibbs, of van’t Hoff and Arrhenius, and arranged them into a systematic whole which ever since has been taught under the title physical chemistry, a discipline that is now viewed as the basis of all other branches of chemistry. His great goal became “a chemistry without substances,” i.e., the system of those general concepts and relationships (laws of nature) that can be applied to all substances without dependence on their nature.

Physical chemistry really was created from the application of the laws of thermodynamics for explanation of chemical events. Ostwald was not satisfied to limit the validity of thermodynamics to physics and chemistry. His fine success in this area and his lively imagination misled him to the belief that phenomena and occurrences in physiology, psychology, and sociology, in fact even in art, could be explained through the thermodynamic laws. In 1907 he stated: “There is no problem that cannot he solved by means of the laws of thermodynamics.”

Ostwald held that in reality everything consisted of energies. However, it is not entirely clear what he meant by energy. He employed and operated with this concept usually in a completely material sense. He took the field especially against atomism; he believed that atoms did not exist, that they were merely relics of ancient mystic tenets. Unfortunately he put forth this contention at a time when the atom, after being no more than a mental picture for thousands of years, was in fact becoming accessible to scientific experimentation. Ostwald was finally convinced of the reality of atoms by the work of Jean Perrin on the Brownian movement (1908).

The extremes to which Ostwald extended his thermodynamic philosophy are well illustrated by his “Happiness Formula,” in which he sought to express a state of mind in mathematical terms. Its genesis was a spell of depression from which he sought to escape into a happier state, and for this he thought it necessary to discover the laws of happiness. After several weeks of intense cogitation directed to this goal, he believed that the solution was as follows:¹

He proceeded from the fact that all life is characterized by liquid equilibrium in which a continuous energy stream flows through the system. Every conscious experience is proportional to the total energy flow. If the experience is welcome, i.e., in harmony with the will, it produces a pleasant or happy feeling; when it is unwelcome, i,e., opposed to the will, it produces displeasure or unhappiness. The proportional energy in the first case is represented by A, in the second case by W. One feels happy or not depending on whether (A – W) is positive or negative.

“At first I thought that I had thus found the solution that I had been seeking snd I was rather unsatisfied with the scanty finding that in order to be happy it was necessary to make the total of the welcome activities and experiences as large as possible, and the sum of the unwelcome ones as small as possible. However, people are usually intelligent enough to do that without any science.

But then I remembered that formerly the mere overcoming of difficulties and hindrances had produced positive feelings of happiness, which now were not nearly so strongly felt of course. Consequently, the energy activity itself must contain a source of happiness and this likewise must be brought under the sought law.

The total energy participation is the sum of the welcome and the unwelcome, hence (A + W). Since all pleasurable sensations cease, when (A – W) as well as (A + W) equals zero, both constituents must be bound to each other as factors of a product and not perhaps as the members of a sum. If a factor k is also introduced, which expresses the conversion of the energetic event into the psychological, the result is the happiness formula (Glücksformel), in which G represents the degree of happiness:

Expressed in words, the formula states that happiness is proportional to the excess of (A – W) of the energy involved that is in accord with the will and to the total amount (A + W).

In order that the happiness assume a highest possible value, both factors (A – W) and (A + W) must be as large as possible. Of the two, the total energy activity (A + W) is under our control only to the extent that we preserve our health by leading a physiologically suitable life, because illness represents diminution of energy. The energy stream is most independent of us in childhood and early adulthood and inevitably decreases with advancing age. This falling-off usually starts to became noticeable between the 40th and 50th year of life and comes more and
more into the foreground in later years.

In youth (A + W) is accordingly large and intense happiness can be attained even though the other factor (A – W) is decreased by notable values of the resistances W. If (A – W) once becomes negative, the high value of (A + W), likewise a high negative result, brine about a marked feeling of unhappiness. Youth therefore is characterized by vehement fluctuations between intense feelings of happiness and unhappiness.

If the total involvement of energy decreases with advancing age, the product necessarily becomes smaller, and to insure an adequate feeling of happiness the person must primarily see to it that the second factor (A – W) becomes as large as possible, i.e., that the resistances are as small as possible. Accordingly, the kind of happiness enjoyed in youth is much different than that enjoyed in maturity and old age. The young exhibit heroic happiness, i.e., the powerful activation of the total energy, and are capable also of overcoming great resistances. The quiet happiness of the aged on the other hand resides in the avoidance of resistances, in the peaceful enjoyment of fruitful activities that are in accord with the will.”

Ostwald maintained of course that the possession of this formula enabled him to keep the feeling of unhappiness away from himself. The reader is at liberty to try it on himself and determine whether he can succeed as well as Ostwald in this endeavor.

{ fin }

1. Ostwald, W., Annalen für Naturphilosophie, 4, 419 (1905). [This reference does not appear to be correct. The page number should be 459. See here. —Ed.] [↩]

From Falconer, Douglas S. 1992. “Early Selection Experiments”, in Annual Review of Genetics, Vol. 26, No. 1, December 1992, pp. 1–16—

The question at issue was whether selection applied to a continuously varying character could produce large and permanent differences comparable to those between species, as Darwin thought it could. The reason for thinking it could not do so originated in Galton’s work, published in papers from 1877¹ [...] and in his book Natural Inheritance² in 1889. He studied human stature and several other continuously varying characters, and found that the offspring of extreme parents were less extreme than their parents; the offspring exhibited a “regression to the mean.” (The fact of regression must have been known to observers of human excellence for a very long time, because it is clearly stated in Homer’s Odyssey³. Odysseus’ son Telemachus is lamenting his weakness compared with the godlike strength and courage of his father; Athene, in the guise of Mentor the trusted retainer, says to him: “Few are the sons who attain their father’s stature: and very few surpass them. Most fall short in merit.”)

1. Provine, William B. 1971. The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics, University Of Chicago Press, Chicago. [↩]
2. Galton, Francis. 1889. Natural Inheritance, Macmillan, London. [↩]
3. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by T. E. Shaw, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1940, p. 32. [↩]