Survival of the weakest

“Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world! Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!” - ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (Image by Sabine van Erp)

If you watch several episodes of the BBC’s Planet Earth in quick succession (I have, many times, in my role as science teacher), you will notice a couple of themes emerge.

The first is the tight balance of power in predator-prey relationships. If the prey are easy to catch, there are a zillion individuals to make up for it; if the prey is scarce, you can expect that the predator is going to have to work for its meal and may go hungry sometimes. You can clearly see the way these pairs of species have evolved together so that both can survive.

The second theme is the incredible way in which each species has carved out its own ecological niche. Why is this critter living on a steep mountainside where the winds are heavy and food is hard to find? Because, over many generations, its ancestors adapted to be uniquely suited to the harsh conditions, with few others to bother them.

We humans make a number of mistakes in interpreting these lessons of evolution and Charles Darwin’s work. The first and most obvious is our trouble with the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” This does not necessarily mean that the strongest or healthiest individuals survive. It means that, over generations, the traits that are the best fit for the environment are the ones that will persist.

A Bengal tiger, despite being a strong and powerful animal, is not fit for living on the arctic tundra. It cannot suddenly begin eating a vegetarian diet, and it can’t decide to become a pack animal for convenience and safety. It doesn’t matter how healthy the individual tiger is — if it’s not living in the conditions it is suited to, it will not make it.

But can’t the tiger adapt? Not exactly. Another misinterpretation of Darwin’s work is the idea that the organisms that can adapt to their environment will survive. No — such adaptations take place over successive generations, not one lifetime.

In the past few weeks, I’ve heard a number of people invoking the name of Darwin to make sense of what is happening in our society, relating his theories of natural selection to business and public health. This is a fundamental misapplication of Darwin’s ideas, unless we’re interested in evolving toward a society that has, say, no artists, no elders, and no domestic airlines.

When something unexpected happens, large, established organizations can’t pivot quickly. Those who were just starting out don’t have deep pockets. And those who are dependent on others — children, the elderly, the sick — can’t just magically become self-sufficient.

But luckily, we’re not facing a meteor and we’re not dinosaurs. When we face a crisis, we can work together to minimize the damage done to society and to individual lives and livelihoods. We don’t need to leave the “weaker” ones behind. Their weakness does not make them less worthy.

This isn’t the moment to buy up competitors and assert our dominance — this is the moment to remember the value that we all bring to the table, even if we are facing significant physical or financial challenges. This is the moment for pooling our resources to solve some of the biggest problems we have ever faced.

Human beings are, in fact, evolving. Once, we cared only for our families and threatened any stranger who came close. Over the generations, we learned to cooperate in larger tribal groups, and then in villages and cities, states and nations. Now, we’re being called to care for humanity as a whole — an entire, interconnected, interdependent global community.

Looking out for ourselves as individuals will not save us — it will doom us all. This is an opportunity to show what we’re capable of. We can adapt to this threat and become stronger as a result. Not as individuals, but as a species.