:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Selection as winnowing


Overview

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Analogy Map

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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

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Quote Bank

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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

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References

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  1. Wilson, D. S. (2015). Does Altruism exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others. New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press.