How to rescue the concorde fallacy.

In a recent issue of TREE, Coleman and Gross’ claim that if life history theory is incorporated, it appears that the Concorde fallacy, originally proposed by Dawkin+, is itself a fallacy. They conclude that ‘There is no role for the Concorde fallacy in understanding parental-investment theory’. In this last comment they may be right. However, the idea is not new. Dawkins, in The Exrended fhenorype3, had earlier observed that while digger wasps seemed to commit the Concorde fallacy, it might be that ‘what appeared to be maladaptive was better interpreted as an optimum, given certain consrrainrs’ (p. 48, Dawkins’ italics). What Coleman and Gross propose is essentially the same idea: if certain constraints are taken into account, it appears that committing the Concorde fallacy may indeed be the best option. Coleman and Gross discuss the Concorde fallacy in relation to the entire lifespan. We think that the