Abstract
The handicap principle is one of the most influential ideas in evolutionary biology. It asserts that when there is conflict of interest in a signaling interaction signals must be costly in order to be reliable. While in evolutionary biology it is a common practice to distinguish between indexes and fakable signals, we argue this dichotomy is an artifact of existing popular signaling models.Once this distinction is abandoned, we show one cannot adequately understand signaling behavior by focusing solely on cost. Under our reframing, cost becomes one—and probably not the most important—of a collection of factors preventing deception.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 997-1009 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Philosophy of Science |
Volume | 82 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- History
- Philosophy
- History and Philosophy of Science