Does Evolution Have its Roots in Love?

Why do we place such emphasis on love,

Should we just not go forth and multiply?

Instead of that person sent from above,

Could we not mate with any girl or guy?

 

The Zebra Finch will choose a mate for life,

Raising their young as an efficient team;

But an experiment split cock from wife,

And made them mate with others for this scheme.

 

The pairs that had free choice to mate were found

To have over a third a better rate

Of reproductive efforts that were sound,

Than those who were forcibly shown a mate.

 

Could this study of finches mean thereof,

That evolution has its roots in love?

Brought together through love (Photo Credit: Keith Gerstung)
Brought together through love (Photo Credit: Keith Gerstung)

This is a Shakespearian sonnet written about a recent piece of research, which found that the number of surviving chicks was significantly higher for zebra finches that had been allowed to choose their mate, rather than those that had a mate randomly assigned to them.

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