Evolution at an Impasse
Two opposing theories of evolution have emerged into a new impasse – “survival of the fittest” versus symbiosis. As Charles Darwin explained in The Origin of Species (1859), evolution results from competition between species. On the opposing side, evolution is thought to result from altruistic cooperation between the species − a process of symbiosis.
Darwin proposed that evolution stems from “accumulating slight, successive” changes during the “struggle for life”−a process he called natural selection. Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, born the same year as Darwin, captured the essence of this struggle for life in the now-infamous phrase—“nature red in tooth and claw.”
