A Student Has a Good Idea!

These days, I feel like new and creative ideas rarely surface in class, but today a senior offered something worth thinking about: the British Monarchy is analogous to Fisher's runaway model of sexual selection-- essentially, an ornamental trait like the peacock's tail goes through two stages, one where the tail indicates health and vigor and then a coevolutionary spiral where the trait detaches from practicality and becomes unhinged from natural selection—and the monarchy fits this-- the monarchy was once the most effective way to rule and protect the country (Queen Elizabeth leading the British against the Spanish Armada) and the British saw this ruler as appointed by God-- and there was certainly an element of survival of the fittest among these monarchs, with much plotting and murder and intrigue, but slowly the monarchy detached from practicality and became more for show—an expensive and pompous and ornamental display that survives because of preference and popularity, not for any practical reason-- the peacock's tail of Britain, while the Prime Minister and Parliament are the actual genetic code of the country.