K-Selection: Margulis & Sagan, Slanted Truths

Margulis L & Sagan D (1997) "Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis, and Evolution

The book opens with some lines from Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst, that truth needs to be told "slant" so that it doesn't blind people. This poetic stance, which could lead to symbiosis, erodes as the text proceeds. There are 24 essays by Margulis & Sagan solo, in duo, and in combination with varied other writers. The first movement consists of two personal compositions about their contacts with Oppenheimer and the decision to create and to drop Fat Man on Hiroshima and about Lynn's choices to be a wife or to be a scientist. The material would be touching even if one of the players were not the late Carl Sagan, to whom this book is dedicated, and the writers his first wife and his son.

The second movement reintroduces Gaia; the third is a variably passionate attack on neo-Darwinism.

The Gaia Hypothesis describes living systems in physiologic rather than structural terms. Living systems exchange gases and liquids with their surroundings with the results of self maintenance and reproduction. The concept applies equally well to bacteria, to humans, and to the earth. All living things, except bacteria, are actually communities of other living things that may or may not share a common perimeter. Even cells that make up protoctists, animals, plants, and fungi are symbiotic assemblies of formerly independent bacteria, the ancestors to the nucleus, centriole, mitochondria, and the cell body. Interdependence is stressed rather than survival and competition. Competition between organisms is seen as a chemical exchange that keeps the total network of living thing in stasis. For example, salmon swim upstream to spawn and die. Their bodies feed diatoms that in turn feed the next generation of salmon.

Dorion's chapter on "What Narcissus Saw" reveals that he can skip levels of explanation as easily as I can; he even has to put "notes" at the end. Obviously, this is a superior chapter for style even if the contents were not of highest importance. He weaves from philosophy to data to make a convincing analogy that earth is in process of reproduction.

Generally, complicated, important things are handled in a clear manner across the essays.

There is, however, some contradiction. Several chapters paraphrase Kierkegaard on the point that the more foolish an idea, the more extreme its proponents must be. This premise is dropped as Lynn attempts to insert a new posterior orifice into us neodarwinists, sociobiologists, and other discipline-bound members of the life science. She is very acid; I wonder if Kierkegaard could be amended to say that "the more extreme the attack, the less plausible its merit"? Lynn can be quite bitchy when she gets rolling, as she does in "Big Trouble in Biology: Physiologic Autopoiesis vs. Mechanistic neo-Darwinism" (I flipped back to Emily for some therapy!)

I refused to let Lynn activate my "Us/Them" Chip (1); I like her writing and her ideas and won't throw them out because of her nagging. And, I'm not going to quit sociobiology. The following seem reasonable:

a) There are levels of description and explanation. It's perfectly true that Natural Selection isn't cranking out species and mutation isn't doing so well, either. However, we are likely in a period of no new species for whatever obscure reasons even though humanity is killing a lot of them. Even though Natural Selection is unsatisfactory, symbiosis also leaves a lot of slack.

b) Brian Goodwin's notions of Excitable Fields (1994, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots, NY: Oxford) are likely more general and can be applied to any size territory. Biochemistry supplies one, but only one, level of explanation that Goodwin potentially could include. Even though we are integral with and integrally dependent upon other living creatures, it's also useful to isolate certain events for independent, productive, although incomplete, analysis.

c) Lynn's complaints about the monopoly the neo-Darwinians have on funding and university faculty were surprising. I'm more accustomed to complaints from the neo-Darwinians that they will be lynched by the general American public, particularly the sector called "fundamentalist." (2) I have difficulty thinking she's really suppressed with 26 citations of herself in her own book.

d) K-Selection is the obvious problem. Things are tight. We have more scientists alive than have lived in the history of Gaia, all of them exchanging fluids and gases. We are likely at the carrying capacity of our culture. If so, then we should expect less altruism (a act that costs the donor and benefits the recipient with perhaps a return obligation in the unspecified future) and more cooperation (both creatures are donor and recipient simultaneously), more alliances, and greater investment in progeny (postdocs).

e) This phenomenon can also be described as "lateral inhibition" in which active neuronal assemblies suppress activity from the less active. The perceptual gain is one of focus and concentration on an image or a thought. The model also applies to speciation (Gould and "Wonderful Life" in which successful species suppress the survival of less adept) as well as to software (check with Microsoft's competitors), and to ideas (practice Confucianism in Iraq).

f) We could, in a grand moment, declare r-selection just for Lynn and it would probably kill her. She's a fighter and fighters do better with some opposition. Maintaining K-Selection means that she has to take territory instead of having it given to her. Thus, she will write more, will speak more, and will do better work because we're not giving her free resources.

g) Like other life forms, like Goodwin describes, and as she describes, her efforts and ours are mutually necessary. We will each evolve to something more simply because of the other. (A little Red Queen, perhaps? Or is this better described as reciprocity and symbiosis?) % to insert a new posterior orifice into us neodarwinists, sociobiologists, and other discipline-bound members of the life science. She is very acid; I wonder if Kierkegaard could be amended to say that "the more extreme the attack, the less plausible its merit"? Lynn can be quite bitchy when she gets rolling, as she does in "Big Trouble in Biology: Physiologic Autopoiesis vs. Mechanistic neo-Darwinism" (I flipped back to Emily for some therapy!)

I refused to let Lynn activate my "Us/Them" Chip (1); I like her writing and her ideas and won't throw them out because of her nagging. And, I'm not going to quit sociobiology. The following seem reasonable:

a) There are levels of description and explanation. It's perfectly true that Natural Selection isn't cranking out species and mutation isn't doing so well, either. However, we auctory chapter, "The Red Shoe Dilemma" describes her conviction that a scientific career and being a wife are not compatible. She shed two husbands but kept 4 children. Is this Trivers and Hamilton?

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