[thechat] A clear lack of understanding

[Judah McAuley]

dave mclean wrote:
<snip>
> Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium
> with the surrounding   environment.  But you humans do not.  You move to an
> area and you multiply and multiply until every   natural resource is
> consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area.
</snip>

Yeah, I remember this.  It made me cringe.  I've got too much
evolutionary biology knowledge in me.  The problem is that its *not*
instinctual to find an equilibrium with our surroundings.  Evolution is
defined by fitness.  Fitness is based on how many offspring you have
that live to reproduce.  "Success" is maximizing your fitness.  Species
keep expanding until their enviornment slaps them down (the WWF
Evolutionary Smack Down. Oh Yeah!).

The problem with our species is that we have too much adaptability and
too much control over our environment.  Most species, the smack down
happens to relatively small groups or in small areas.  Their food
sources, etc., determines the carrying capacity for the environment they
live in.  Given the right characteristics for the species, births and
deaths equal out so that the species cycles near carrying capacity.  But
with humans, we've got so much control and so much adaptability, we push
the environment too hard.  It's not that we have a different fundamental
desire to push the environment, its that we have too much ability.  Our
adaptability means that our evolutionary smack down will come only with
a huge ecosystem collapse.

Its a battle between common sense and evolutionary impluse.  And that's
a tough battle.  Base instinct is currently winning by a long run.  In
order for us as a species to continue for a long time, we are going to
have to curb our natural impulse to push our environment as far as we
can go.  Because we can push it too far.  We are going to be screwed if
we can't figure out how to overcome our impulses to have lots of babies
and hoard all the food.  We need to become the first species to actually
have group-level selection.  And that's not going to be easy.

Alright.  Back to reading documentation for the beta of Neo.  Mmmmm...CF
and Java.

toodles,
Judah