Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence

Population Wars: A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence

Language: English

Pages: 320

ISBN: 1250105307

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


From the very beginning, life on Earth has been defined by war. Today those first wars continue to be fought around and inside us, influencing our individual behavior and that of civilization as a whole. War between populations―whether between different species or between rival groups of humans―is seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular concept of survival of the fittest explains and often excuses these actions.

In Population Wars, Greg Graffin points to where the mainstream view of evolutionary theory has led us astray. That misunderstanding has allowed us to justify wars on every level, whether against bacterial colonies or human societies, even when other, less violent solutions may be available. Through tales of mass extinctions, developing immune systems, human warfare, the American industrial heartland, and our degrading modern environment, Graffin demonstrates how an oversimplified idea of war, with its victorious winners and vanquished losers, prevents us from responding to the real problems we face. Along the way, Graffin reveals a paradox: When we challenge conventional definitions of war, we are left with a new problem―how to define ourselves.

Population Wars is a paradigm-shifting book about why humans behave the way they do and the ancient history that explains that behavior. In reading it, you'll see why we need to rethink the reasons for war, not only the human military kind but also Darwin's "war of nature," and find hope for a less violent future for mankind.

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impervious to the effects of the environment or of use and disuse. In 1896 Weismann proposed his germinal selection theory, which was the founding spirit of neo-Darwinism. In this view, natural selection ultimately distinguishes between variant forms of hereditary material (good genes vs. bad genes, in today’s parlance), and, through generations of hereditary descent (passing along those good genes), produces lineages that show progressive specialization and perfection. This, then, was the

Genes,” New York Review of Books, May 26. For a further guide to the issue of IQ it is worth reading the spirited exchange by Richard Lewontin, who summarizes the fallacy of the intelligence quotient beautifully, and his critics on the topic in “Is Intelligence for Real? An Exchange,” New York Review of Books, October 22, 1981. 205. Microevolution is that branch of biology that deals with changes in populations from one generation to the next, and it is measurable in ecological time frames, on a

alteration in that decaying heap of algae and plant debris; an alteration that some unimagined future organisms—with big brains, strong backs, and weak foresight—would exploit for their own evolution. Anoxia (the lack of oxygen) prevented the organic debris from breaking down. Under “normal” conditions, like here on Earth’s surface, or in nearshore environments, oxygen is plentiful. Oxygen breaks down dead organic tissues either by allowing aerobic bacteria to consume them, or by enabling an

throughout all aquatic environments, and many nonaquatic places as well, moving with the currents and winds, thriving on surfaces that meet their conditions of existence. Inside the tiny fluid-filled spaces between your bones, caked on the insides of pipes and air vents, floating freely in the oceans—colonial and solitary—bacteria are everywhere and their activity has changed little in billions of years. Even though we cannot visit the primeval Earth or the original habitat of bacteria and other

puts an undue emphasis on the prize and actually detracts from the important functions of sports, such as skill development and social engagement. Competition, as a concept that pits two individuals (or teams, or groups) against each other in the quest for a clearly defined goal, belongs on the playing field, not in the ideology of a nation or in the foundation of an ethical principle. Yet, as we read every day in the newspapers, competition is supposed to sustain our markets and our culture,

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