LO and Quality initiatives LO19367

Rol Fessenden (Rf9@compuserve.com)
Mon, 28 Sep 1998 03:14:39 -0400

Replying to LO19365 --

Nick,

you said, "I think maybe you're not understanding the nature of the
competition? Individuals that are able to use food more effectively are
competing with individuals that are not. The former individuals tend to
pass on their genes more, so the population adapts as the genes for more
efficient use of resources become more common."

Perhaps a subtle point, but my understanding (of the situation in the
Galapagos to which I referred) is that individual birds were not in any
sense competing with other birds for food. Some birds could use the food
effectively, as you say. By that is meant that calories in exceeded
calories out to such an extent that healthy baby birds could be born.
This conforms with your view. But the notion of competition with other
birds is not apparent in any observations of people on the spot. The
distinction between birds who survived and those who did not revolved
around the interaction of the bird with the environment.

Those who survived were those who could make use of the food in the
environment. Those who did not survive could not make effective use of
available food. However, there was no competition of any sort between the
"ineffective" and the 'effective" birds. One could argue that if all of
the effective birds had been removed, the ineffective birds would still
have died because they simply could not convert food to calories
effectively.

We often speak of evolution in terms of competition, but the point that a
number of people have made is that in many cases, it is the species'
relationship with the environment that is critical, not its relationship
with other species. It may make more sense to use terms like
"productivity" than competition. Species that can turn calories into
babies effectively will thrive, those who cannot will not. Competition
fits nicely inside the notion of productivity, because more productive
species can use up a shared food supply, thus driving to extinction a less
productive species. But productivity allows for other forms of extinction
or success as well.

-- 

Rol Fessenden

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>