From Jag Bhalla at BigThink:
1. Life’s games are not all “red in tooth and claw” fights. And you need no brain to see that a “war of all against all” might not be the best way. Even single-celled bacteria “know” that.
Stop, wait. Single-celled bacteria do not “know” anything and never will. The reason that they do not behave according to the survival of the fittest is that because the Darwinian theory of evolution is wrong. Better theory can explain how they behave co-operatively without attributing minds to them.
To “know”what is going on in Bhalla’s sense is to have a mind like a human being.
2. In “Survival of the Friendliest” Kelly Clancy describes the evolutionary logic of relationships beyond rivalry (e.g, “friendships” deep enough to defend common interests, sometimes a “snuggle for survival”).
3. For instance, ~98% of bacterial species don’t thrive outside mixed-species colonies.More.
It is not even clear that the Darwin-dependent concept of “species” is useful in describing bacteria. Getting past that may shed light on some key questions. It is a good thing that Bhalla is raising these issues.
See also: Nothing says “Darwin snob” like indifference to the mess that the entire concept of speciation is in
and
Does intelligence depend on a specific type of brain?
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