J.H.Boersema
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 Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:13 am Post subject: Humanity: species changing from one niche into another. |
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Humanity is a species developing from one niche to another, causing
all kinds of problems.
The niche of the species currently called humanity was some millions
of years ago that of an omnivorous group animal under threat from
predation. There are some behavioral adaptations that can be seen
in other species that make success in that niche more likely. The
most important may be the internal-species violence, which seeks out
to promote the strongest fighting individuals. Apparently it is
so important to select the most fighting fit individuals that other
interests can be pushed to the background at least temporarily. Other
interests can be preventing injury from mutual struggle and spending
energy on finding food.
When a species faces a risk of being a victim of predation, then it
has a benefit if it stimulates those attributes that prevent becoming
a victim of predation. When a species has the ability to survive
by hunting other species, it has an interest in stimulating those
attributes. When larger land animals are being predated or are hunting
themselves these activities usually end in the same kind of a fight
between two animals. Working to maintain a fighting fit population
by selecting the most fighting fit for breeding would roughly have the
same effect in improving performance of a species in the last stages
of both being hunted and hunting themselves, because those stages are
similar in the demands they place on the animal.
Example: if 2 monkeys fight over the right to rule a group and have
best access to food and making offspring, and the one who is just
a little bit quicker in biting effectively while all else is equal,
that the monkey who bites a little bit more effective is more likely
to survive the confrontation with the other monkey of the same species.
That monkey may then go on to rule the group, have easiest access to
food, and produce most or all of the offspring. The offspring is then
more likely to also be a little bit quicker and effective with a bite.
Although this was only tested in a battle between monkey and monkey
of the same species, the struggle at the end of predation is sufficiently
similar to a monkey on monkey struggle to also give that offspring an
additional benefit there. Eventually the groups that maintain their internal
personal violence end up doing better then others in the end stage of
predation, and worse in some other aspects of survival. Apparently the
importance of being competent in the end stage of predation is important
enough to promote such species that maintain internal personal violence.
The attributes of fighting are also stimulated automatically by culling
the less fighting fit through predation and lack of making prey, but
if they can be stimulated by behavioral adaptations the attributes
would develop quicker. If the cost of the behavioral adaptation to
other aspects that promote survival is less then the benefit, such
behavioral adaptations are stimulated into existence.
There are some individual aspects of this: when two individuals fight,
then whatever the evolutionary pressures surrounding a species, the
loser in that fight has a lesser chance of survival. Therefore a group
of violent specimen maintains its own direction toward being ever more
adapted to violence, at least in the short term and local to one group.
Only on a larger scale where different groups (and species) are
competing and non-violent survival aspects end up being more important
in the long term, only then may the violent groups be removed and
the less or non-violent take over their place.
Example: all animals die out except that violent species of monkey, and
a non-violent species of birds. If food becomes less generally available
the distance between food increases, making adaptation to finding food
and reaching it more important then it was, and there will be fewer animals
in total. If the violent species of monkey is just on the brink of
starvation for a long time, those groups that spend more time on violence
waste more energy and could die out quicker. The groups that are less
violent lose their fighting fitness over time, but without predation or
hunting this does not affect them negatively. Although in the more fighting
groups the last specimen could be the most effective fighters so that
they could even eat the other specimen, as groups they are still dying out.
It is possible that if nature recovers that the importance of predation
returns, and with it the adaptation of internal violence.
One of the adaptations to finding the fittest fighter that species do
is to stage fights. In many species (such as hoofed grazing mammals)
the females judge the performance of the fight and make the selection
on who will father the offspring. This works because the attributes
of fighting fitness also pass on from father to daughter, therefore
the females of the species also become more fighting fit (without
having to do the nasty work). In other species the females establish
fighting hierarchies between themselves (some monkey-like species
for instance). One of the side effects of this is polygamous relations
between males and females in a species, because they are constantly
making new selections based on who is dominant in fighting. When one
specimen is dominant today, another may be dominant tomorrow. When
one specimen is dominant today in one area, another may be dominant
in another area, which means the selection changes when place is changed.
Polygamous relations can be helpful when selecting for fighting fit
specimen, because constantly the most fighting fit can be immediately
selected. A second effect is that one dominant specimen can create
offspring with many other specimen. As long as dominance was truly
established they will all get offspring from the best fighting specimen.
Because the relation is not stable through time but different specimen
will later become dominant, the genetic diversity of the species is
maintained. If the relation was monogamous - one male and one female -
there would not be very effective selection on fighting fitness. If
the relation was stable through time there would not be effective
selection on fighting fitness. Selecting for fighting fitness is most
effective in a winner takes all system, especially when genetic diversity
does not suffer. Polygamous relations in larger land animals can be seen
as having a role as part of the selection mechanism of the most fighting
fit animal.
Humanity however is no longer in the same biological niche as it
was before. Humanity is now a technical animal. Humanity fights
not with its hands and muscles and teeth and reflexes. Humanity
fights currently with guns, infrastructure and satellite imaging,
atom bombs, engineered biological virusses, chemistry, etc etc. In
the future this will only become more powerful. For humanity the
biological pressure is toward non-violence, because our niche does
not react well to violence anymore. It is not useful to confront an
attack by a predator with an atom bomb. It makes no sense to defend a
city from a pack of lions by sending out a carpet bomber. That level
of violence is overkill, it will destroy parts of humanity and its
infrastructure, while simpler weapons such as hand guns will do the
necessary trick even more effectively. All out internal-species
violence of a high tech species will either decimate that species,
extinct it, and it can presumably sterilize the planet once we are
far enough ahead in technical development. In a potential war between
Earth and a colony on Mars either planet could end up sterile and
lifeless.
When we did not have technology and when we were in the same niche as
the naked apes, we would have had to establish fighting dominance in
order to survive. When we had simple technology the aspect of body
on body violence (fist/teeth/athletics) still existed, because the
technology was dependent on the state of the body to be effective. A
speer is a new tool few if any animals have, but it does nothing
without a strong and athletic arm. (Sports is an interesting adaptation
to the problem of perfecting certain primitive technology skills in
a non-violent way.) A person may also not always be carrying a speer
and therefore have to confront a predatory animal bare handed. When
humanity began to herd cattle an amount of violence was taking
out of the problem of catching prey. When hunting in the open to
find prey, there is more risk of being attacked by predators, and
fighting to overcome the prey is less predictable and potentially more
violent. Taking an animal from a herd and slaughtering it requires much
less specially selected for fighting fitness. Walking around with a
herd would reduce the danger of predation as the predators will likely
select an animal from the herd rather then one of the humans. When
humanity began to live in settled villages it became easier for
humanity to defend those areas from violent predators. The increases
in weapons and their quality made predatory animals increasingly
afraid of humanity, thus reducing predation pressures on humanity.
Today humanity has technology and infrastructure which is so far
developed that humanity does not require any specially bred in fighting
fitness to survive. All the adaptations meant to improve fighting
fitness are only cost factors without benefits now.
But behaviorally humanity has not managed yet to make the transition
cleanly. Humanity its behavior remains significantly adapted to its
former niche and is significantly not adjusted to the niche it is
currently occupying. In important ways both niches have opposite
demands: the former demanded adaptations for violence, the current
niche demands adaptations for internal peace.
The monogamous/polygamous adaptation to violence is now also without
those benefits. The benefits are now presumably with monogamous
creation of offspring which has a tendency to produce higher quality
offspring through better care and knowledge. The monogamous relation
system is also helpful to promote internal peace in the species. The
existence of about as many males as females also suggests monogamous
relations.
Presumably this niche transition is what all problems for humanity boil
down to because the change is fundamental and radical. It is affecting
everything, and the change is radical from one opposite to another:
from generalized all out war between all having been perfected over
many millions of years, to generalized all out peace between all.
Humanity has to overcome its "internal beast," where it has already
overcome the external beast which are predators/prey. Either there
will be a victory of peace itself, or humanity is looking at a bleak
picture of increasingly effective technology assisted species-internal
violence. Humanity could then end up in some kind of nightmare
scenario, or it dies out completely.
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