Competition

The point I am trying to make is that evolution does not look for the best solution: it only works by being "good enough". It has to build on what went before. I am not trying to say that the complexity is not impressive or anything. But efficient? You ever watch those films of turtles hatching? The attrition rate is very high: as it is for a whole lot of things which produce huge numbers of offspring at great cost to the adult, most of which get eaten while still very young. Human reproduction uses a different strategy, but it still results in high maternal and infant mortality, left to itself: and pregnancy does immense damage to the female body: that is also a very high cost. Yet we are told that reproduction is the "aim" of evolution.

Those two different strategies are both the result of evolution, and they are equally good (or equally bad, I would say). So the first thing that is obvious is that there is no "optimal" solution: there is only "what works". Turtle attrition works for seabirds: but that is not really what turtles might be guessed to want. Maybe they do. Maybe they say to themselves: I will lay 300 eggs so that the birds can have dinner on 250 of them: and I will be the proud parent of 50: win/win!. But if they think that then they are not into competition at all: for looked at in another way that is a real committment to altruism, or at least cooperation with other species at the expense of the baby turtles.

If we did want to use an analogy drawn from the natural world it is just as possible to do it with different result. We can say that the turtles are the people and the seabirds the corporations. The turtles produce goods (baby turtles) for their own purposes: and the seabirds eat them when the turtles aren't looking. They don't eat them all; they need to ensure there is a continuing supply of turtles, so some survive: and the turtles do not know the rest are eaten, so they think things are going ok. That is, of course, market equilibrium. Lovely!

The baby turtles compete with each other:they don't compete with the seabirds. One can say the seabirds compete with each other and maybe they do. But it is equally possible for them to divide up a territory and claim exclusive use of the baby turtles in their bit: seabirds don't do that with turtles, for the turtle rush is time limited: but other predators do. And we are famliar with the benevolent image of the shepherd looking after the sheep. What the sheep do not know is that what they have to fear is not the wolf, who will limit his consumption if left in peace: but the shepherd. The shepherd is exactly like the seabird. He intends to kill every last one of them consonent with securing supply. And he agrees with all the other shepherds not to encroach on their flocks.The shepherds do not compete, unless things go badly wrong for them

Edited by FionaK - 24/1/2012, 11:46