Snuggle
The Darwinian notion of evolutionary competition is being replaced by a new understanding: the ‘snuggle for survival’. Darwin borrowed the ‘survival of the fittest’ and the ‘struggle for survival’ from Herbert Spencer. What he meant, of course, was survival of the most adaptable. But evolutionary biologists are finding that competition in nature is the exception and cooperation is the rule. In a letter to New Scientist in 2009, Thomas Frost proposed that ‘a mutation finds a niche and snuggles into it’. Similarly, in her book on natural intelligence, Leen Gorissen emphasises the prevailing mutualism of win-win relationships in nature.
— Wayne Visser
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From Purpose Inspired: Reflections on Conscious Living, Volume 5. Buy on Lulu ↗