Mortality and birth weight in Philadelphia Blacks: An example of stabilizing selection

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Abstract
It has been suggested that as a result of the action of natural selection the mean value of any biological measurement would be the most normal value and associated with the most favorable survival rate. Selection is said to be stabilizing (or normalizing or balancing) if individuals with intermediate values for a given quantitative trait have the highest fitness. Birth weight is perhaps the most clear‐cut example of a human character subject to stabilizing selection.This paper presents the distribution of birth weights among 8382 Philadelphia Black infants and the rate of perinatal mortality for the birth weight classes. Using these data, several analyses of stabilizing selection are made.The data were taken from the Collaborative Study on Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, and other Neurological and Sensory Disorders of Infancy and Childhood.