Skip to main content

The lion and the wildebeest

Birds flock, fish school, bees swarm, but social being is more than simply sticking together.  Social groups enable specialisation and a sharing of abilities, and enhances ability, learning and creating new tricks. The more a group works together, the more effective they become as a team.  Chimpanzees learn from each other how to use stones to crack nuts, or sticks to get termites.  All around us we see cooperation and learning in nature.  Nature is inherently creative. 

Pulling together becomes a rallying cry during a crisis.  We have heard it throughout the coronavirus pandemic.  "We are all in this together", a mantra that encourages people to adopt a common strategy. In an era of 'self-interest' and 'survival of the fittest,'  and 'selfish gene', we lose sight of the obvious conclusion from the evidence all around us.   Sticking together is more often the better approach.  This is valid for the lion as it is also for the wildebeest. 

 We don't all have or need the same levels of ability.  In that sense, the extent to which genes might be involved, we share such genes as a community.  This is what we really mean when we refer to a 'gene pool'.  It is odd that we made such a fuss about 'selfish genes', yet failed to realise that, on the contrary, 'genes' are social too - they can't work without being so.  

The checks and balances in ecosystems depend more on cooperation than on a simplistic notion of aggregate individualistic behaviour, or self-interest. Teamwork is the glue that holds the ecosystem together. 

So it is with the relationship between lions and wildebeest.  Putting aside humans, predators do not, as a rule, overexploit their prey.  The behaviour of both lions and wildebeest is dynamically interactive.  

Ecologists studying their behaviour found that when wildebeest aggregated in clumps (close groups), the lions were less likely to catch them, resulting in a lower consumption rate for each lion than when the wildebeest lived as individuals.   When both lions and wildebeest act as a group, the kill rate falls.  But the lions don't go hungry; lions working together will share a kill.  

A Pride can be as many as 30 lions living together, hunting as a team, and sharing.  When food is scarce, the pride gets smaller.  Within a pride, there is a division of roles.  The males will protect the pride and its young.  They will often be seen separated from the pride, but this is because they are defending the territorial boundary of the group.  They communicate by their roar, which can be heard over long distances.  Females are the primary hunters.  They bring down their prey working as a team, in constant silent communication with each other, fanning out to surround their target.  After the hunt, all the lions in the pride share the meal.  Cooperation works. 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ian Duncan-Smith says he wants to make those on benefits 'better people'!

By any account, the government's austerity strategy is utilitarian. It justifies its approach by the presumed potential ends. It's objective is to cut the deficit, but it has also adopted another objective which is specifically targeted. It seeks to drive people off benefits and 'back to work'.  The two together are toxic to the poorest in society. Those least able to cope are the most affected by the cuts in benefits and the loss of services. It is the coupling of these two strategic aims that make their policies ethically questionable. For, by combining the two, slashing the value of benefits to make budget savings while also changing the benefits system, the highest burden falls on a specific group, those dependent on benefits. For the greater good of the majority, a minority group, those on benefits, are being sacrificed; sacrificed on the altar of austerity. And they are being sacrificed in part so that others may be spared. Utilitarian ethics considers the ba...
7 comments
Read more

Ethical considerations of a National DNA database.

Plans for a national DNA database   will be revealed by the Prime Minister this week. This is the same proposal the Tories and Liberal Democrats opposed when presented by the Blair government because they argued it posed  a threat to civil liberties. This time it is expected to offer an 'opt-out' clause for those who do not wish their data to be stored; exactly how this would operate isn't yet clear. But does it matter and does it really pose a threat to civil liberties? When it comes to biology and ethics we tend to have a distorted view of DNA and genetics. This is for two reasons. The first is that it is thought that our genome somehow represents the individual as a code that then gets translated. This is biologically speaking wrong. DNA is a template and part of the machinery for making proteins. It isn't a code in anything like the sense of being a 'blueprint' or 'book of life'.  Although these metaphors are used often they are just that, metapho...
2 comments
Read more

The unethical language of 'welfare dependency'

It is unethical to stigmatise people without foundation. Creating a stereotype, a generalised brand, in order to  demonize a group regardless of the individual and without regard for the potential harm it may do is unfair and prejudicial. It is one reason, and a major one, why racism is unethical; it fails to give a fair consideration of interest to a group of people simply because they are branded in this way. They are not worthy of equal consideration because they are different.  It seeks also to influence the attitudes of others to those stereotyped. If I said 'the Irish are lazy'; you would rightly respond that this is a ridiculous and unfounded stereotype. It brands all Irish on the basis of a prejudice. It is harmful certainly; but it is worse if I intend it to be harmful. If I intend to influence the attitude of others. And so it is with 'the unemployed'. All I need do is substitute 'work-shy' and use it in an injudicious way; to imply that it applies to...
2 comments
Read more