Coevolution Quotes

In a Fisherian world, animals are slaves to evolutionary fashion, evolving extravagant and arbitrary displays and tastes that are all "meaningless"; they do not involve anything other than perceived qualities. ~ Richard O. Prum

When changes in one genetic trait are the source of selection for changes in a second, the rate of response in the latter depends in parts on the rate of change in the former, which, as a rule, is not fast. In comparison, if a cultural practice modifies selection acting on human genetic variation, then the greater the proportion of individuals in the population that exhibit the cultural trait, the stronger the selection on the gene. As a consequence, the rapid spread of a cultural practice often leads quickly to the maximally strong selection of the advantageous genetic variant, which rapidly increases in frequency. Cultural practices typically spread more quickly than genetic mutations, simply because cultural learning typically operates at faster rates than biological evolution. What does the speed with which a culturla trait spreads depend upon? Answer: the fidelity of cultural transmission. The very factor that is critical to the emergence of complex cumulative culture in humans is also a major determinant of evolutionary responses to that culture. ~ Kevin N. Laland

In the wild a plant and its pests are continually coevolving, in a dance of resistance and conquest that can have no ultimate victor. But coevolution ceases in an orchard of grafted trees, since they are genetically identical from generation to generation. The problem very simply is that the apple trees no longer reproduce sexually, as they do when they're grown from seed, and sex is nature's way of creating fresh genetic combinations. At the same time the viruses, bacteria, fungi, and insects keep very much at it, reproducing sexually and continuing to evolve until eventually they hit on the precise genetic combination that allows them to overcome whatever resistance the apples may have once possessed. Suddenly total victory is in the pests' sight - unless, that is, people come to the tree's rescue, wielding the tools of modern chemistry. ~ Michael Pollan

Of course, even before Flaubert, people knew stupidity existed, but they understood it somewhat differently: it was considered a simple absence of knowledge, a defect correctable by education. In Flaubert's novels, stupidity is an inseparable dimension of human existence. It accompanies poor Emma throughout her days, to her bed of love and to her deathbed, over which two deadly agélastes, Homais and Bournisien, go on endlessly trading their inanities like a kind of funeral oration. But the most shocking, the most scandalous thing about Flaubert's vision of stupidity is this: Stupidity does not give way to science, technology, modernity, progress; on the contrary, it progresses right along with progress! ~ Milan Kundera