* Costly signaling and the handicap principle.

Dawkins defines the " symptoms " of being infected by the " virus of religion ", providing examples for most of them, and tries to define a connection between the elements of religion and its survival value ( invoking Zahavi's handicap principle of sexual selection, applied to believers of a religion ).

Two hypotheses for explaining this fact are the sexy son hypothesis and the handicap principle.

The handicap principle states that a male who survives despite possessing some sort of handicap thus proves that the rest of his genes are " good alleles ".

Furthermore, handaxes can be good handicaps in Amotz Zahavi's handicap principle theory: the learning costs are high, there are risks of injury, they require physical strength, hand-eye coordination, planning, patience, pain tolerance, and resistance to infection from cuts and bruises when making or using such a handaxe.

The handicap principle suggests that reliable signals must be costly to the signaler, costing the signaler something that could not be afforded by an individual with less of a particular trait.

A series of papers by Getty shows that Grafen ’ s proof of the handicap principle depends on the critical simplifying assumption that signalers trade off costs for benefits in an additive fashion, the way humans invest money to increase income in the same currency.

Larks evade merlin by sending a similar message: by continuing to sing while being chased, it tells the pursuer that its prey is fit and therefore will be difficult to catch ( see handicap principle ).

It was only in the 1970s that this apparent contradiction was resolved based on the evolution of honest signalling and the handicap principle of Amotz Zahavi, though the actual mechanism may be less straightforward than it seems – the cost arising perhaps from the fact that the hormones that enhances feather development depress the immune system.

Zahavi is best known for his work on the handicap principle, which explains the evolution of characteristics, behaviors or structures that appear contrary to the principles of Darwinian evolution in that they appear to reduce fitness and endanger individual organisms.

( 1977 ) The cost of honesty ( Further remarks on the handicap principle ).

The handicap principle: a missing piece of Darwin's puzzle.

He called this idea the handicap principle.

Zahavi ’ s conclusions rest on his verbal interpretation of a metaphor, and initially, the handicap principle was not well received by evolutionary biologists.

) These red, orange and yellow carotenoid-dependent ornaments are hypothesized to be a general form of an immunocompetence handicap, and a specific mechanism by which the handicap principle might work.

Efforts to test the handicap principle empirically have not been decisive, partly because of inconsistent interpretations of Zahavi ’ s metaphor and Grafen ’ s marginal fitness model, and partly because of conflicting empirical results: in some studies individuals with bigger signals seem to be paying higher costs, in other studies they seem to be paying lower costs.

A series of papers by Getty shows that Grafen ’ s proof of the handicap principle is based on the critical simplifying assumption that signallers trade off costs for benefits in an additive fashion, the way humans invest money to increase income in the same currency.

Macmillan, London, pp 253 – 259 ohnstone RA ( 1995 ) Sexual selection, honest advertisement and the handicap principle: reviewing the evidence.

Based on the ideas of honest signal and the handicap principle, Miller suggested that music and dancing, as energetically costly activities, were to demonstrate the physical and psychological fitness of the singing and dancing individual to the prospective mates.

Altruist theories in evolutionary biology were contested by Amotz Zahavi, the inventor of the signalling theory and its correlative, the handicap principle, based mainly on his observations of the Arabian Babbler, a bird commonly known for its surprising ( alleged ) altruistic behaviours.

One such case is the Eastern Swamphen ( Porphyrio porphyrio ), which gives conspicuous visual tail flicks ( see also aposematism, handicap principle and stotting ).

Reality is considered not only irrelevant to the acquisition of higher knowledge, but a positive handicap.

* Bisque, half-bisque A bisque is a free turn in a handicap match.

A half-bisque is a restricted handicap turn in which no point may be scored.

Following the departure of Steve Rider from the BBC, Lineker, who is a keen recreational golfer with a handicap of four, became the new presenter for the BBC's golf coverage.

France prohibits by its penal code and by its press laws public and private communication which is defamatory or insulting, or which incites discrimination, hatred, or violence against a person or a group of persons on account of place of origin, ethnicity or lack thereof, nationality, race, specific religion, sex, sexual orientation, or handicap.

In criminal trials, the insanity defense is where the defendant claims they are not responsible for their actions due to mental health problems ( psychiatric illness or mental handicap ).

Opponents say that if it is high enough to be effective, it increases unemployment, particularly among workers with very low productivity due to inexperience or handicap, thereby harming less skilled workers and possibly excluding some groups from the labor market ; additionally it is less effective and more damaging to businesses than other methods of reducing poverty.

While there are sensory advantages present at the macroscale compared to the limited sensorium available at the nanoscale, proposals for positionally controlled nanoscale mechanosynthetic fabrication systems employ dead reckoning of tooltips combined with reliable reaction sequence design to ensure reliable results, hence a limited sensorium is no handicap ; similar considerations apply to the positional assembly of small nanoparts.

A handicap in this process is the difficulty of seeing and manipulation at the nanoscale compared to the macroscale which makes deterministic selection of successful trials difficult ; in contrast biological evolution proceeds via action of what Richard Dawkins has called the " blind watchmaker "

Advocates respond that it is difficult to undertake a comprehensive design effort in the absence of significant funding for such efforts, and that despite this handicap much useful design-ahead has nevertheless been accomplished with new software tools that have been developed, e. g., at Nanorex.

It is the richest " two-mile " handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races.

The race is a quality handicap for horses 3 years old and over, run over a distance of 3, 200 metres, on the first Tuesday in November at Flemington Racecourse.

The minimum handicap weight is 49 kg.

The Melbourne Cup race is a handicap contest in which the weight of the jockey and riding gear is adjusted with ballast to a nominated figure.

At the start of the game the football is placed on the central point, unless one player gives the other a handicap, in which case the ball starts nearer one player's goal.

From then on, the game spread powerfully across the country and Argentina is credited globally as the mecca of polo, mainly because Argentina is notably the country with the largest number ever of 10 handicap players in the world.

The best player on the team is usually the Number Three player, usually wielding the highest handicap.

Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller hypothesizes that rhyme is a form of sexually selected handicap imposed on communication making poetry harder and more reliable as a signal of verbal intelligence and overall fitness.

) The two most common handicap systems are the IRC and the Portsmouth Yardstick, while the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet ( PHRF ) is very common in the U. S. A.

The CVC is meant to bring all visitors in through one handicap accessible security checkpoint, yards away from the Capitol itself, increasing security and offering visitors educational exhibits, a food court, and restrooms.

Constitutional scholars, editorial boards, and the Monarchist League of Canada have argued against any such constitutional tinkering with the viceregal appointment process, stating that the position being " not elected is an asset, not a handicap ," and that an election would politicize the office, thereby undermining the impartiality necessary to the proper functioning of the governor general.

Impaired hearing is the most common physical handicap in the industrialized world.