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March 16 - March 23, 2021
Natural selection and extinction are not just about plants and animals. It is important to understanding how the world changes over time, and how these changes force an adaptive response. If we resist adapting, we ultimately contribute to our own end.
We don’t have to be objectively best, just better than those we are competing against. “In other words, living things do only as well as they have to rather than optimize.”1
« Adaptation is as good as it has to be; it need not be the best that could be designed. Adaptation depends on context. » Geerat Vermeij3
The Red Queen tells Alice, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”16
Don’t reinvent the wheel, repurpose it There is a lot of opportunity that already exists in your world. You don’t have to start from scratch with adaptation. In evolutionary biology, making use of things you already have is sometimes referred to as an exaptation.
The Book of Ingenious Devices. This book was a catalogue of machines, including a self-trimming lamp, an automatic flute player, and a programmable machine.22
Too often we get stuck in “functional fixedness,” a mindset where we see in things only their intended use, rather than their potential use.
However, it’s not strength that survives, but adaptability. Strength becomes rigidity. Eventually your competitors will match your strength or find innovative ways to neutralize it.
But we often suffer from intervention bias, the desire to always do something instead of leaving things alone, when it comes to ecosystems.
The problem is that fire is a natural part of these ecosystems. It is only humans that view naturally occurring fires as a problem.
Organisms within an ecosystem have varying degrees of importance for the maintenance of that system. Some are foundational to its survival. These are known as keystone species: organisms that would cause an ecosystem to completely change or collapse altogether if they were not present.
An example of a keystone species is the sea otter, which lives in kelp forests. Sea otters eat sea urchins, which in turn eat kelp.
The Law of the Minimum states that the yield of a crop will always be dictated by the essential nutrient that is available at the lowest level.
One of these was a “Life Skills Program” for the players that had “four major thrusts, all aimed at equipping otherwise unprepared players for adult life.”25
In the biological world, some species are categorized as generalists, who cover a large territory and face more competition but are flexible in meeting their needs. Others are specialists who occupy a smaller territory and face less competition but are more rigid in their requirements.
For this reason, generalists are not greatly affected by rapidly changing environmental conditions and so they can maintain large populations. Such organisms include cockroaches, rats, raccoons, and humans.
Generalists can survive and flourish in just about any setting. But specialists tend to be much less comfortable with habitat change.» Peter Ungar1
The competitive exclusion principle explains why we see such a diverse range of organisms within ecosystems. Even though they inhabit in the same area, each occupies its own niche and has traits that distinguish it from its neighbors.
A generalist faces more competition every day. Surviving and reproducing are a constant struggle.
« Natural selection has a limited repertoire of potential forms from which to choose, and convergent evolution is the result. » George R. McGhee10
In biology, convergence refers to the process wherein organisms evolve analogous traits that were not present in their last common ancestor. In other words, species that are not closely related to each other will find the same solutions to the same problems in their quest to survive.
Generalists face more daily competition, but they are more adaptable. They maintain a large population that occupies a broad niche.
Coke convinced consumers that they weren’t just buying a drink. They were buying a lifestyle.
To drink Coke was to live a better life.
‘Things go better with Coke.’ What went better didn’t matter so much—Coke could just as well spark romance as childhood friendship. It was left to the consumer to fill in the blank.”23
An ecosystem is comprised of niches, and we can think of these as roles to be filled. There is a trade-off between specialization—dominating a smaller niche—and generalization, occupying a larger niche. Specialists have less competition and stress, but only in times of stability. Generalists face a greater day-to-day challenge for resources and survival but have more flexibility to respond when times change.
Just like human mothers, many animals are willing to go to great lengths to ensure the survival of their offspring and therefore their species in turn.
A selfish gene will try to survive by helping family members.
Self-preservation is a core instinct that explains many of our actions including why we are highly sensitive to situations of scarcity, why we try to increase our value at the expense of our organization, and why we make sacrifices to ensure legacy.
The same happened to the Habsburgs. Without genetic diversity, recessive mutations that would have otherwise failed to show up in children were reinforced and compounded over generations.7
Replication as a mental model teaches us that we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel. Often a good starting point is what others are doing. Once you get a sense and a feel for the environment you can adapt to better suit your own needs.
Cooperation, or symbiosis, in biology rests on the idea that an organism that cannot perform an important function alone fills this particular gap by using the physical body of another organism, who also benefits from the interaction.
Mitochondria produce adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which can be thought of as the energy currency of the cell.
Shelley describes an orchestra by saying, “When things are working well, a conductor and orchestra are in this state of absolute coordination where the music is speaking the way it needs to speak.”11
These shared beliefs are requirements for our lifestyles—“large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths.”
If there was any one model that explains humanity, then this is it.
This means that being socially successful is critical for our survival, both as a species and an individual. There is, however, a limit to how many social relationships we can successfully navigate. Thus, being socially successful is about knowing our limits and investing our time accordingly.
Hierarchies in the human world act as information filters causing us to potentially miss opportunities and ideas. The way we organize ourselves is often a default to our instincts on leadership and authority.
For example, the leader becomes dominant because of skills displayed in the competitive process of becoming leader—strength, smarts, etc.
They are not necessarily the most skilled for actually running the show.
Status Symbol The history of fashion can be read, in part, as a chronicle of humans trying to establish and negotiate social hierarchies. How we dress communicates information to people about our status.
Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff says of magazines that “the fashions they feature are as much products of social competition as the finest bird feathers or the sweetest birdsong.”1
This is a problem in democracies, as Aristotle pointed out over 2,000 years ago. For all their political attractiveness, they are essentially governed by millions of people acting in their own self-interest. And those interests tend to be driven by incentives that offer immediate rewards.
We often instead make choices that result in long-term negative consequences.
The tendency in organisms to conserve their energy is what ensures they will have extra to draw on in times of increased need.
The instinct to minimize energy output can lead us to be resistant to change or risk-taking.
Psychologists have a word for the efficiency mechanism in how we think: heuristics. When we’re thinking of making a decision, large or small, we use shortcuts developed from our long experience in the world;
Other heuristics seem to be built into how our brains operate. The most famous of these—anchoring, availability, and representativeness—were extensively studied by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. They demonstrated that these heuristics are essentially innate to the human brain.
Kahneman offers a couple of corrections for the tendencies of heuristics: remember the base rates and pay attention to the quality of information.5
When it comes to offices, open-plan layouts don’t reduce overall energy expenditure. They may make it easier to move around, but they vastly increase the effort needed to focus and get work done—which are what matters most in an office.
Experience doesn’t become learning without reflection, and reflection is an energy expenditure.
