James Brody
January 30th, 2005, 09:51 AM
Evolution in the Subway
WABC, 770 AM, 6:30 am, Tuesday, January 25, 2005: the immediate story was that a homeless person kindled a blaze in order to stay warm. He used supplies from his shopping cart to build the fire that rode the cables into a relay station, melted insulation, and shut down several subway lines in New York City. Estimated repair time: FIVE years, later shortened to six months (and probably not the fault of a homeless person!) The fire destroyed some of the original electrical systems on which the rest of the network depends. Older systems back-up the newer and underlie an infinite variety of spin-off systems that depend on duplication, variation within compartments, and by-passing the old arrangements. Further, the machine tools, the environments, that manufactured the old parts no longer exist. And each relay station is different from every other relay station, a compartment that responds to local conditions and explores its own developmental path over generations. Finally, in a functional similarity to our immune system, the bolts and bars meant to exclude vandals and trespassers kept out the firefighters but not the fire. WABC also reported the subway tunnels to be a niche for many homeless and for petty criminals because the cops fear both darkness and the third rail. Remove predators and sexual selection reigns: we might expect bigger, bolder, or more clever crooks and homeless and greater variation in the contents of their carts!
Those tunnels become a biology experiment. Robert McArthur and Ed Wilson might find that the number of species is an algebraic function of tunnel area and derive an equation. The cops will certainly clean house just as Wilson once fumigated an island. In a few years the original population parameters will recur even with different players. And we see again the role (but not necessity!) of geographic isolation and evolutionary stages that support "new stuff" that rests on "old stuff" even when the "old stuff" can no longer be created anew. Squaws pulled travoises, street people push carts, yuppie broads on high, as if still in a tree, pilot SUV's: we all choose and carry our stuff. Evolution is a theory only to narcissists, fundamentalists, and impulsive fools who live only in the present.
James Brody
References
Mayr, E. (1976) Evolution & the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap.
MacArthur, Robert & Wilson, E.O. (1967/2001) The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Raff, Rudolf (1996) The Shape of Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Copyright, 2005, James Brody, All Rights Reserved
WABC, 770 AM, 6:30 am, Tuesday, January 25, 2005: the immediate story was that a homeless person kindled a blaze in order to stay warm. He used supplies from his shopping cart to build the fire that rode the cables into a relay station, melted insulation, and shut down several subway lines in New York City. Estimated repair time: FIVE years, later shortened to six months (and probably not the fault of a homeless person!) The fire destroyed some of the original electrical systems on which the rest of the network depends. Older systems back-up the newer and underlie an infinite variety of spin-off systems that depend on duplication, variation within compartments, and by-passing the old arrangements. Further, the machine tools, the environments, that manufactured the old parts no longer exist. And each relay station is different from every other relay station, a compartment that responds to local conditions and explores its own developmental path over generations. Finally, in a functional similarity to our immune system, the bolts and bars meant to exclude vandals and trespassers kept out the firefighters but not the fire. WABC also reported the subway tunnels to be a niche for many homeless and for petty criminals because the cops fear both darkness and the third rail. Remove predators and sexual selection reigns: we might expect bigger, bolder, or more clever crooks and homeless and greater variation in the contents of their carts!
Those tunnels become a biology experiment. Robert McArthur and Ed Wilson might find that the number of species is an algebraic function of tunnel area and derive an equation. The cops will certainly clean house just as Wilson once fumigated an island. In a few years the original population parameters will recur even with different players. And we see again the role (but not necessity!) of geographic isolation and evolutionary stages that support "new stuff" that rests on "old stuff" even when the "old stuff" can no longer be created anew. Squaws pulled travoises, street people push carts, yuppie broads on high, as if still in a tree, pilot SUV's: we all choose and carry our stuff. Evolution is a theory only to narcissists, fundamentalists, and impulsive fools who live only in the present.
James Brody
References
Mayr, E. (1976) Evolution & the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap.
MacArthur, Robert & Wilson, E.O. (1967/2001) The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Raff, Rudolf (1996) The Shape of Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Copyright, 2005, James Brody, All Rights Reserved