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"Why We Take Risks," by Richard Coniff. Discover Magazine, December 2001, pages 62-67.
This article discusses a principle in evolutionary biology known as the "handicap principle." The handicap principle "holds that animals and humans alike prosper not in spite of our riskiest and most extravagant behaviors but because of them," the article states. "These behaviors are the way we advertise how prosperous, how fit, how fearless we are." Since it was first proposed in the 1970s, the handicap principle has accumulated evidence. Now an Oxford biologist has demonstrated with a mathematical model that the principle makes sense in evolutionary terms.
--- Allyn Jackson
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