The Red Queen
Two fascinating questions lie at the heart of The Red Queen: Why is Homo sapiens a sexual species, and what implications does this have for human nature? That man is sexual may seem unremarkable, yet in fact not all plants and animals need to have sex to reproduce; simple cloning is practiced by many animals with much greater efficiency. To understand how life evolves, and what benefit sex provides for humans, we must think like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, who had to keep running just to stay in place. According to a controversial yet persuasive new theory, evolution is not about progress, but about changing in order to survive. Because humans are in a perpetual battle with the parasites lurking within our bodies, we need to be able to change molecular locks as fast as parasites invent new keys. Sex enables us to alter genetic combinations every generation. Sex, then, is a vital weapon in disease resistance. It enables us to change, not so we progress ahead, but so we avoid falling behind. But what does all this mean for human nature? From a lucid overview of the Red Queen theory, Matt Ridley follows the logic of its argument into the heart of human behavior. For just as the human eye is a product of evolution, so is human nature.
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- Consider "The Red Queen" by Ridley book. It's premise is that evolution constantly improves a species, but since other species also are improving, the species runs and runs but stays in the same place.
It's the same thing in business. One has to relentlessly decrease the cost of doing business, because your competitors are doing it as well. You run and run and stay in the same place.
I haven't read the cited article, but the professor would need to show that industry profit margins are increasing to make his point. I haven't seen any evidence that margins increased in general.
- Always reminds me of the forces that shape the mechanisms around the exchange of genetic information that powers evolution.
See: Red Queen by Matt Ridley.
- Check out the book "The Red Queen". The author points out that even chromosomes fight for survival at the expense of other chromosomes and the body. X chromosomes try to destroy the Y chromosome, for example.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0...
This is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read.
- A fascinating read about such things is "The Red Queen" by Ridley.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0...
It's all about the propagation of the genes, not the survival of the organism.
- I read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and I loved both of them, can recommend.
Seveneves is an amazing book, just make sure you skip the last part.
If you are into history I can recommend The last days of the Incas by Kim MaqQuarrie, it's just an insanely interesting description on how the Incas was conquered, it feels like you're there man.
If you like evolutionary biology/phsycology then check out The Red Queen - Sex and the evolution of human Nature by Matt Ridley.
- Eating one's own species is a fairly complex topic, and there are many local optimas. For a detailed read on this topic, see "The Red Queen" by Ridley.
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0...
