What if a PREDATOR species, in an Ecology of reduced water supplies, better adapts to low water than the prey? This puts greater pressure on the prey … and it makes intra-species competition for water in the prey species even more influential.
In any ecology with limited resources, It’s ALWAYS a combination of the two factors: ecology and competition.
First and foremost, the competition or conflict in the Survival of the Fittest is not between predator and prey. It is never between two species, but between alleles of the same species to determine which one will survive and flourish.
I repeat again and again, prey and predator are not competing for the same resources. Lions cannot eat grass, and zebras cannot eat lions. If somehow the lions could do without water or hog the water, so they could finish off the zebras, they would be out of a food supply next season, so this is not their goal, nor the goal of ecology, nor of evolution.
By making something an ALWAYS rule, you make it a MYTH independent of evidence. If something is always a combination of two factors, then you need to determine which one is the determining factor, which again is the ecological factor.
The pray and predators are symbionts which develop in such a manner to make best use of all of the natural resources between them, including water.
You are kind of making up as you go along, aye, Roger?
I agree that alleles of the same species compete against each other … AND this competition finds its traction (in many cases) in overt competition between the individuals of the same species.
I agree that if Lions didn’t allow zebras to get to the water, they would eliminate their food source. Obviously it is the predator that is more in balance with its prey that enables both predator and prey to persist in the ecosystem for generation after generation.
But it is also obvious that there have been any number of prey/predator relationships where something changed, and predators suddenly enjoyed a run-away advantage that caused a collapse of the delicately balanced arrangement!
Humans are the FIRST predators that are faced with SELF-CONSCIOUSLY determining which populations of prey they can hunt and which they should hunt LESS in order that everyone survives. Up until now, no doubt countless predators have blundered into extinction simply because they became too good at hunting … or because the ecosystem changed giving the predator too much of an edge.
@gbrooks9, where is your evidence?
Again you have it wrong. It is humans who have hunted some prey to extinction and no one else.
This is an example of what I mean. Why would HUMANS, with a full measure of self-awareness, be the ONLY creature to hunt prey to extinction?
Why would non-human predators be LESS likely to wipe out their prey? … .ESPECIALLY as wilderness areas become increasingly diminished?
Even in the prior sentence, we can see how ECOLOGY and COMPETITION combine together to determine the fates of creatures everywhere…
You are basing your thinking on your own logic, rather than scientific observation. There is good evidence that humans hunted to extinction the mammoths and the saber toothed tiger, as well as the dodo and the passenger pigeon. Humans well might hunt to extinction lions and elephants.
The fact is that humans are able to break the laws of nature, in part because many so not understand them, while God’s creatures are not free to so the same,
You need to that Darwin and Darwinism teaches that this is a “zero sum” world, when it is not a “zero sum” world, and that is the reason that Darwinism and you are wrong. If you had read my book as you said you would, you would know this.
I read your book, Roger. I think it would have been a huge hit in the Victorian era…
But I believe the issues you focus your attention on so zealously ARE being treated and discussed in the current literature on Evolution and natural selection.
The more you tilt at windmills, the less credible your position becomes. The Roger School HAS arrived … but you just don’t believe it.
It might be time to move on. After all, how many times can a person sing “The wheels on the bus go round and round” ?
Respond to the issue, which is conflict in a non-zero sum world.
The time to move on is when @gbrooks9 and @glipsnort start responding with evidence to back up the statements they are making about conflict being the basis of natural selection.
I think I’m out now. I’m pretty convinced there is nothing that I can write or find that can change your position.
You are obviously a man of great faith.
I made no statements in this thread about conflict being the basis of natural selection, or indeed about conflict at all.
I think I’m out now. I’m pretty convinced there is nothing that I can write or find that can change your position.
Please try some documented facts. You have the whole internet at your disposal as a resource to document your position, but instead you insist of repeating your tired assertions about conflict. Where is the beef?
You are obviously a man of great faith.
I would accept this as a complement, but it is written in a negative manner, so I will reject it as such. On the contrary I have presented many facts to support my position and you have presented none to support yours.
Thus you are clearly the person of great faith in faith. I mean that in exactly the same way you meant it for me. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Your position is built on faith in Malthusian Survival of the Fittest, a most Victorian Imperialistic belief. Mine is based on the facts of symbiosis and the new science of ecology. They speak for themselves.
I have declared my position frequently and without reservation:
There’s no point in trying to paint me as a Malthusian. Ecology AND natural selection - - TOGETHER. Just like the greater majority of Evolution write about. I’m not a fan of the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” - - since comparable fertility probably means more than survival of an individual.
Fortunately the majority does not rule in science.
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