Alright not quite the last

I can't believe i found this, i may be wrong, but no one in the sexual selection field seems to refer to this.

Which is truly bizarre because its basically saying how the lek paradox could be resolved (well kind of) as well as how heterozygous deleterious can be purged. Recombination is the answer to everything.

Section 11.3.5 from Ridley's Evolution pp289-293

This is section included in a larger section on the discussion of the function of sex. It is not strongly linked to discussion of sexual selection yet it provides very interesting thoughts on how sexual reproduction (i.e. reproduction with recombination) is a good system for removing heterozygous mutations.

The whole argument reminds me of the quote from Darwin in "A Devils Advocate" (Dawkins) "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature"

This is exactly what Ridleys section is describing, that recombination, by allowing new combinations of alleles promotes the formation of more very high quality individuals as well as promoting the formation of more very low quality individuals. Evolution is being wasteful, but in a way that allows the continued maintenance of genetic quality and explusion/purging of deleterious mutations (even those at heterozygous loci).

Because this is more of an argument for how the costly process of sexual reproduction may have evolved, the ideas expressed are not mentioned in any of the rest of the literature.

This would be a good thing to include in the dissertation.