Dec 16
Our inner-life has a stronger resemblance to our direct experience than Nature’s genes have to organisms; so much so that it even spills over this presumed inner-outer divide as overt ‘playfulness’. Is this why we become easily ‘attached’ to our thoughts? (And why it’s taken me three days to write the next paragraph?) A long tradition of dharma …
Dec 13
I was at a local Green Party meeting the other day1 where we were all asked to identify ourselves and to say something about why we wanted to be involved in the upcoming election campaign. (I’m the sign delivery guy.) I tried to respond thoughtfully, which takes time as you know, but when this aging …
Nov 22
As you can see from reading other postings on this website, my understanding of population evo-ecology doesn’t allow me to see humans as having a ‘place’ within coevolving Nature, not just because of the faster-than-Nature evolution of technology but mostly because of technology’s niche-transcending capacity.1 Modern humans are not a species (hence the quotation marks …
Feb 09
“The devil of complacency is in the ignorance of detail.” This is another post that I’ve resurrected, and updated, from four years back, because it places the Extremophile Choice hypothesis in the context of the broader, and not the currently fashionable, ecological discussion. The original has earned more attention from ecological nerdom than many of my other blogposts, so …
Jul 17
A short selection from Essay Thirty in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. … and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man—such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind —Bullfinch’s Mythology With the …
Jun 21
The Whole of Essay Nineteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. —William of Ockham [1] The flexible behaviour of higher animals can’t be trusted to maintain resource partitions; only innate structure can. Thus ecological stability requires not only that inapposite curiosity …
Jun 08
A short selection from Essay Fifteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. A bird might marry a fish, but where would they live? —Tevye character, in Fiddler on the Roof For the need of a niche, or for the good of a ‘race’, sexual traits intensify the cut of new species, just as they …
Jun 01
A short selection from Essay Fourteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice According to modern ecological theory, high diversity at any trophic level of a community is possible only under the influence of cropping. —Steven M. Stanley, 1973 [1] The wolf makes the deer strong. —Oji-Cree stone-age wisdom Though the young of a species …
May 30
All of Essay Thirteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. … the result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring. Sexual selection is, therefore, less rigorous than natural selection. —Charles Darwin [1] From the ecological standpoint, a species is a population of organisms that can’t breed beyond itself without …
May 27
A short selection from Essay Twelve in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement. Thus the master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she stays serenely in herself. Why should the lord of the country flit …
