The law of the jungle

I found this Q&A on a website, and it was very interesting. I feel this is an important message for everyone. The original is in Japanese, and I have translated the main points so it is much shorter than the original one.

Q: We have a "law of the jungle" and I know that this is an inappropriate question, but in nature some animals eat the weaker animals - this is the law of the jungle. So, I wonder why in human society, we don't have that law of the jungle. Long ago, when small groups of people went to battle, the weaker group were killed by the stronger group. Nowadays though, the society supports the weak, using our tax money. I think the fact that strong genes survive is natural providence. In other words, we no longer have natural providence. Please tell me what you think about this, but without talking about human rights.

A: I think you are misunderstanding something. In nature, there is no "law of the jungle". There is no guarantee that just because you are strong you will not be eaten, and similarly you will not necessarily be eaten just because you are weak. For examples, tigers are stronger than rabbits, but rabbits are surviving all over the world, and yet tigers are on the verge of extinction. At an individual level, there is a law of nature. And in the end, every individual will die. The length of a life is different but from the viewpoint of nature, there is no difference. One dog may live 2 years, another dog may live 10 years, there is no meaning.

At the species level, it is "survival of the fittest", however most people misunderstand what this actually means, and it is not the "law of nature". The "survival of the fittest" doesn't mean that strong creatures survive, it means that creatures most suited to the environment will survive. And it doesn't mean survival of an individual creature, but that their genes are passed onto the next generation. In nature, there are many ways we can adapt successfully to the environment. For example, it is not necessarily the fast-acting creatures that survive, it is also possible for the slower, less-active creatures to survive too.

There are lots of different kinds of creatures, fast, slow, big, strong, weak, small and so on. There are many different forms in nature. As long as that form is suitable for nature, there is no need to consider if they are "strong" or "weak", the most important thing is whether they are suitable or adapted to the environment. If one individual lives for ten years and has one baby and there is another individual that births ten babies, but only lives for a year, the individual who births ten babies is more suited to the environment.

For our species, survival means to continue to the next generation. We have a lot of strategies to do this. Each living creature has different strategies on how to survive and continue the next generation. For human beings, we have a survival strategy and that is "society" and being social. In other words, helping each other and supporting each other to live longer and make sure that the human gene is continued into the next generation. The proportion to which we can survive as a species (human beings) depends on how we help each other. It depends on the power of society. Our society is more advanced than ever before and in the past weaker people would have died but now we are able to help them survive. We are doing a good job of passing on our genes to the next generation.

We don't need to be concerned about passing on the best genes possible - in fact, it is the effective genes that are important. We cannot know what kind of environment will lead to which genes being passed on. In society, if someone is handicapped we do not know whether in the future they might in fact have an effective gene that is needed. We just don't know. And so in human beings there are many different patterns and forms of humans. This is our insurance to make sure that humans survive and carry on into the next generation.

In the Amazon jungle, we can't survive alone. In the huge expanse of nature, humans are very weak. We are all weak when compared with nature. We need society in order to survive. This is why we have society, it is our survival strategy for humans. Humans have come together to support each other in order to ensure that the human gene continues into the future.

We are all weak. To cooperate with each other is our survival strategy.
(2011.6.11)