:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Selection as winnowing
Overview
[edit | edit source]Analogy Map
[edit | edit source]| Winnowing | Selection in evolutionary theory |
|---|---|
| Force of the wind | Selection pressure |
| Mix of grain and chaff | All the existing variants of a trait |
| Chaff | The variants that are not selected |
| Grain | The variants that are selected |
| Absolute “fitness”: all the material that is heavier than what the wind can blow away is retained | Relative fitness: the variants that are better than the other existing ones are selected |
Discussion
[edit | edit source]Quote Bank
[edit | edit source]Wilson (2015)[1]:
“Centuries and even millennia of cultural evolution were required to winnow the self-organizing processes that work, like needles from the haystack of self-organizing processes that don’t work!”
“Most regulatory processes in biological organisms are self-organizing, but a selection process was required to winnow the self-organizing processes that work from the many that don’t work.”
Further Resources
[edit | edit source]References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ Wilson, D. S. (2015). Does Altruism exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press.