Natural selection happens at the genotype level, not the individual level. Having a species that likes to combat with other individuals with, essentially, the exact same genotype, at the expense of both individuals, is often not a winning strategy.
(There are exceptions and caveats of course – e.g. competition between individuals to select the fittest ones of them to preferentially survive, or Fisher’s Principle which explains why the ratio of males to females is roughly 50:50 in most species, even though that’s often not optimal for the species as a whole).
And isn’t it advantageous to the whole forest if the mature trees are the same height? Doesn’t that happen naturally all over the place? Something about equal sunlight, hydraulic pressure, hydration, and… I forget.
It’s advantageous to be a taller tree than your neighbours, since you get more sun. That turned into an evolutionary arms race to the top, and now we have tall forests.
I’m just saying you’re adding too much complexity in this particular phenomenon. Evolution by natural selection is a very robust model that has remarkable predictive power. It only works if you’re not assuming too many inputs.
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Correct
Natural selection happens at the genotype level, not the individual level. Having a species that likes to combat with other individuals with, essentially, the exact same genotype, at the expense of both individuals, is often not a winning strategy.
(There are exceptions and caveats of course – e.g. competition between individuals to select the fittest ones of them to preferentially survive, or Fisher’s Principle which explains why the ratio of males to females is roughly 50:50 in most species, even though that’s often not optimal for the species as a whole).
And isn’t it advantageous to the whole forest if the mature trees are the same height? Doesn’t that happen naturally all over the place? Something about equal sunlight, hydraulic pressure, hydration, and… I forget.
It’s advantageous to be a taller tree than your neighbours, since you get more sun. That turned into an evolutionary arms race to the top, and now we have tall forests.
Man, that’s some crazy logic. I’ll take occams razor and state that wind movement abrades the leaves/limbs on one another.
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I’m just saying you’re adding too much complexity in this particular phenomenon. Evolution by natural selection is a very robust model that has remarkable predictive power. It only works if you’re not assuming too many inputs.