natural selection: competition vs. coadaptation
The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, Flannery pointed out, but their interpretations of the insight then diverged. Darwin’s harsh view of “survival of the fittest” led too easily to social Darwinism, eugenics societies, neo-classical economics, and an overly reductionist focus on the “selfish gene.” Wallace, by contrast, focused on the tendency of evolution to generate a world of complex co-dependence, and he became an activist for social justice.
—Tim Flannery, “Here on Earth”
Later, more sophisticated observers found not the War in Nature that Darwinists reported but rather a situation in which it was not competitive ability but ability to maximize cooperation with other species [sic] that most directly contributed to an organism’s being able to function and endure as a member of a biome. Plants interact with each other through the tangled mat of roots that connects them all to the source of their nutrition and to each other. The matted floor of a tropical rain forest is an environment of great chemical diversity; the topology approaches that of brain tissue in its complexity. Within the network of interconnected roots, complex chemical signals are constantly being transmitted and received. Coadaptive evolution and symbiotic relationships regulate this entire system with a ubiquitousness that argues for the evolutionary primacy of these cooperative strategies.
—Terrence McKenna, Archaic Revival
natural selection: competition vs. coadaptation
The great insight of natural selection was published simultaneously by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, Flannery pointed out, but their interpretations of the insight then diverged. Darwin’s harsh view of “survival of the fittest” led too easily to social Darwinism, eugenics societies, neo-classical economics, and an overly reductionist focus on the “selfish gene.” Wallace, by contrast, focused on the tendency of evolution to generate a world of complex co-dependence, and he became an activist for social justice.
—Tim Flannery, “Here on Earth”
Later, more sophisticated observers found not the War in Nature that Darwinists reported but rather a situation in which it was not competitive ability but ability to maximize cooperation with other species [sic] that most directly contributed to an organism’s being able to function and endure as a member of a biome. Plants interact with each other through the tangled mat of roots that connects them all to the source of their nutrition and to each other. The matted floor of a tropical rain forest is an environment of great chemical diversity; the topology approaches that of brain tissue in its complexity. Within the network of interconnected roots, complex chemical signals are constantly being transmitted and received. Coadaptive evolution and symbiotic relationships regulate this entire system with a ubiquitousness that argues for the evolutionary primacy of these cooperative strategies.
—Terrence McKenna, Archaic Revival
Posted 9 months ago 2 notes
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johntropea reblogged this from helloalexcl and added:
Psychology Altruism...only locally disadvantageous
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