Frankly, I think God has a very keen sense of humor, but most of us just
aren't getting the joke.

In any given environment, selection pressures usually push for greater
specialization, to allow a more efficient exploitation of a biological
niche. If the niche is stable over a period of many reproductive
generations, then the specialization can take extreme forms, as the most
efficient tend to reproduce best. However, once the niche changes, the
specialized species are no longer in their favored environment, and
therefore are less able exploit the new situation, while the more
generalized species can do so since their "niche" is much wider. In a
rapidly-changing environment, the generalist omnivors survive the best, as
they are not choosy about their food sources or their living conditions.
Once the situation stabilizes, the reproductive pressures again favor those
who can exploit the new niche most efficiently.

It seems to me that laziness and greed have a lot to do with biology - the
green things sit there and let the water, and sunlight come to them - no
sweat. Then they want more, so grow bigger leaves, bigger branches, bigger
everything. The browsers are too lazy to wait for food to come to them, so
they eat the green things. They want more, and more, and eat and eat, and
get bigger. The predators are too lazy to spend all day eating the green
things, so they eat the browsers - and they too want more.

While God is laughing, Gaia is ****ed off because the web of life is all
about me, me, me!

Coming back to the original question, are conservatives those who want
change (law of the jungle), or those who want to preserve stability (things
were good back then...)?

"donquijote1954" wrote in message
oups.com...


PG wrote:
All the preyed-upon (sardines, mice, bugs, etc.) have one survival
strategy:
outreproduce the predators, and "make love not war" seems to be
sustaining
the food chain quite nicely. Of course, too much success in reproduction
usually means exceeding your food supply, leading to population crash.
Happens all the time. So you need the predators to keep the browsers in
check, lest they eat everything in sight. Ah, isn't non-violent nature
grand...

Only that God, or the God of Evolution (there must be one, right?) may
be ****ed off...

EVOLVE OR ELSE!

Once upon a time lived a race of dinosaurs whose violence and appetite
alarmed everybody... One day a Little Ant, tired of feeling stepped
upon, and worried about her cooperative enterprise, came up to the
Americanus Raptor--the biggest dinosaur of them all--and asked: "Why
you eat and eat everything in your path? Why don't you slim down? Why
can't we little animals at least have our own way?" Then the dinosaur,
blowing the Little Ant away, shouted: "Bigger is better, so get lost!"

The Little Ant, then, gathered the whole cooperative and said:
"Comrades, our world is being threatened by the dinosaurs, so..." And
at that precise moment the Earth was hit by a big ball of fire,
destroying all but the small animals...

Moral: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the
most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." -Charles
Darwin