From: "Chris McDonald" <chris.mcdonald-AT-llcc.cc.il.us>
Subject: Re: Darwin etc
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:12:50 -0600


Nico:
>Hi Chris,
>
>You wrote:
>
>> Maybe I missed it somewhere in the "free and frank" exchanges about
Darwin
>> and survival of the fittest -- but it seems strange that no-one has
offered
>> up Kropotkin's thesis (although maybe Chuck or Brian mentioned
this)...that
>> the mjority of competititon that goes on is INTER SPECIES.....
>
>I think, you mean majority, not "mjority" (m-jority?).

Correct - damn these fingers!
>
>By the way, the majority of competition is between species and between
>specimen's inside of a specie, if we take note of the new science results
>of the competition of Gen's inside of the body of females and between
>mutations inside of a specie.
>

The competeition between species was what I was referring to. (Intra) My
point was that the focus is placed solely on the competition between
individuals when these ideas are misapplied to a social context.


>> for the niche
>> in the environment, rather than INTRA SPECIES (to "eradicate" the "weak"
>> elements). From this it follows that the most succesful animals are those
>> that have learned to cooperate together in ever more complex
fashion....ie
>> US.
>
>Mutual aid and cooperation doesn't eradicate weak elements or
>characteristics. The Homo sapiens sapiens have still today for example the
>same weak skin as the Homo erectus. Both have used fire to warm themselves
>and their relations (see the fire place 400 000 years ago near Peking).


Yes, reread what I wrote (sorry it may be unclear!) that is what I was
saying -- species compete with each other for their "place in the world"
(niche in the environment...like giraffes getting long necks to eat high
leaves which no one else can reach ...that's their "niche". Furthermore
those animals which can cooperate best amongst themselves (HUMANS) are
likely to emerge dominant... nowhere did I suggest that cooperating
eradicates the weak. I was suggesting this imagery was the result of the
mis-application of quasi-Darwinian notions in a human social context.
>
>If we take note of the fact that every animal is a outcome of a
>cooperation of cell's than we know that cooperation isn't the niche in the
>environment. Cooperation is a principle of nature on the same level as the
>competition is a principle of nature.
>>


Quite although I know knothing about cellular behavior and (I think) if you
took it to a genetic level folks wiser than I might talk about competetive
genes...however, you make my point exactly with your last line
"cooperation is a principle of nature on the same level as competition"
 THAT IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY....!:)

but I was also suggesting that it is a SUBMERGED THEME in most
social/political analysis, whereas competition (see politics, economics,
philosophy etc etc etc) has become almost a unified theory - an unquestioned
assumption and perhaps *THE* idee fixe of the last 150years.  It is this
that needs to be challenged.

Chris