Northern Arizona University/Environmental Ethics/Journals/Maggie R's Journal

Journal Entry #1: August 31, 2009-- Cooperation versus competition. It is an idea that I have not given much thought to before taking this class. I have grown up in the science world believing the work of Darwin, thus believing in the ideas of chance variation, the struggle for survival and the heritability of traits. It was not until this class that I really gave much thought to Leopold and his ideas of cooperation. Now that there is a contradiction to the way in which nature works, I am not sure what I believe. Darwin’s theory on evolution makes sense. In nature, it can be seen on a daily basis. The finches of the Galapagos Islands are of course the most well-known example of this theory. Over time, the strongest and biggest finches were the ones that survived and over time, their beaks adapted to the available food sources on the island and was passed down to their offspring, while the birds without sufficient beaks dwindled and died off—survival of the fittest. This idea that everything in nature competes with each other works and makes sense. However, so does the idea of cooperation, as known as mutualism in the science world. This idea of mutualism is also seen on a daily basis. The bird that eats bacteria off of a rhino’s skin, the fish that eats bacteria off of a shark’s teeth, the fungus that helps certain plants grow. These are examples of cooperation within nature. Humans also belong in nature and this where the ideas of cooperation and competition become confusing and tricky. Homo sapiens display acts of both cooperation and competition in our daily lives. Why is that we express both? Some might say that it is because we are a superior species. However, I feel that the reason we display both theories is because we as a species have the ability of free will. I do not think that this is an issue of deciding which one theory is correct in nature. In fact, they are both correct; it is more a matter of how these two ideas coexist in nature and work together in the complex web of our ecosystems to produce the balancing processes of nature. Therefore, Darwin and Leopold do not necessarily have contradicting ideas, but two ideas that help to explain how nature works and function because of cooperation and competition.