Pushkin.

Hello, dear listeners, it is Tim Harford here with an exciting idea up my sleeve.

I want to know if you'd be interested in joining a cautionary club with additional member-only content. And with that in mind,

the Cautionary Tales team and I have put together a survey. We'd like to find out exactly what

kind of content you're keen to get your hands on. Would you like a cautionary newsletter?

Perhaps some extra conversations like my last one with Adam Grant,

or maybe you have another idea for us altogether.

The link is in the episode description and it will take you just a few short minutes to answer.

So please do take a moment to fill it out

and let us know your thoughts.

We are really keen to hear from you.

Thank you.

Charles Darwin hated peacocks.

The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, he said.

Whenever I gazed at it, makes me sick.

But what had peacocks ever done to Charles Darwin? For years, Darwin had been

working out the details of his theory of evolution. At the core of that theory was a simple but

powerful insight. Some creatures are better equipped than others to survive in their particular environment,

and they get to pass on their characteristics to the next generation.

Darwin called it natural selection, and it explained a lot, but not everything.

Look around in nature, and you'll see plenty of things that don't seem to help with survival.

The peacock's tail, for example, with its long, brightly coloured feathers.

...