The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design

by Richard Dawkins

The tree story allows me to introduce an important general distinction between two kinds of arms race, called symmetric and asymmetric arms races. A symmetric arms race is one between competitors trying to do roughly the same thing as each other. The arms race between forest trees struggling to reach the light is an example. The different species of trees are not all making their livings in exactly the same way, but as far as the particular race we are talking about is concerned – the race for the sunlight above the canopy – they are competitors for the same resource. They are taking part in an arms race in which success on one side is felt by the other side as failure. And it is a symmetric arms race because the nature of the success and failure on the two sides is the same: attainment of sunlight and being overshadowed, respectively. The arms race between cheetahs and gazelles, however, is asymmetric. It is a true arms race in which success on either side is felt as failure by the other side, but the nature of the success and failure on the two sides is very different. The two sides are ‘trying’ to do very different things. Cheetahs are trying to eat gazelles. Gazelles are not trying to eat cheetahs, they are trying to avoid being eaten by cheetahs. From an evolutionary point of view asymmetric arms races are more interesting, since they are more likely to generate highly complex weapons systems. We can see why this is by taking examples from human weapons technology.