From: rob@watney.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Subject: Re: The Moat around God's Eye
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.science
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 06:03:16 GMT

For the rec.arts.sf.science people who don't read .written:
   We have been discussing Niven and Pournelle's _The Mote in God's Eye_ and
   this particular thread is on the possibilty, or lack thereof, of the Moties
   evolving in the form presented in the book.  This discussion was originally
   motivated by the fact that the entire moral dilemma of tMiGE depends
   critically on whether or not an intelligent species that can out-breed
   anybody and cannot stop itself from doing so is possible.

Glossary (taken from the post by Stanley Friesen quoted below):
   [T]he terms [...] are standard population biology terms:
   r-strategy refers to a reproductive strategy that optimizes for lots
   of really cheap offspring and relatively long range dispersal ('weeds');

   K-strategy refers to a reproductive strategy that optimizes for raising
   a few maximally fit, healthy offspring, often with considerable parental
   input in each one ('dominants').

   Examples of K-strategists include humans, albatross, sugar maples, beeches.

   Example of r-strategists include most garden weeds, as well as most
   cultivated plants (which is why cultivated fields are so prone to weeds,
   to get the cultivars to grow we must establish conditions beneficial to
   r-strategists), also most insects, particularly mayflies.

In article <714@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
writes: 
>My point was actually fairly simple.  The Moties combination of large body
>size, long life, and r-strategy reproduction is boucoup unlikely[.]

Agreed, but irrelevant.  The a-priori probability of humanity evolving on
Earth is rather low too, and I hope (please?) that you won't argue we don't
exist... 

>In the Mote system we get the rather absurd combination of an r-strategist
>that has become the dominant species, wiping out all of the K-strategists.
>Not likely!!  If this were really possible, it would have happened sometime
>in the last 600 million years here on Earth.

This is patently false.  You assume that the entire space of possible
combinations of species has been explored up to ecological-niche isomorphisms.

>|Similarly, while their high fecundity is clearly not good for the Moties,
>|there is no evolutionary path out of it, as changing the fecundity would
>|effectively require a complete overhaul.  So they're stuck.
>
>Yeah, but how did they *get* *here*.

I have no idea, I didn't create Mote Prime.  Maybe the Moties are only
r-strategists in the presence of adequate food supply, so their
pre-intelligent ancestors were K-strategists.  After all, low nutrition slows
down sexual changes in humans.  For another maybe, maybe the flare from the
Eye going supergiant killed all the K-strategist competition (creating the
necessary disturbed environment) and the Moties filled up the space before
anybody else could evolve into it.  Maybe a combination of the above (the
original species was K-strategist, a radiation induced mutation made it r, and
instead of being killed according to The Book, it took advantage of the
disruption of Mote Prime's ecology at the time.)  Maybe something else yet
that we don't know about.  It would certainly be good to see if N&P can
explain the paradox, but given the state of our ignorance about the evolution
on Mote Prime, I think cries of `impossible' are rather unfounded.

>Also, I am unconvinced there is no way out.  With proper genetic engineering,
>combined with proper planning, a K-strategy race or variant of the Moties
>would eventually win out over the r-strategists.

Sure.  I meant (and should have written) no _evolutionary_ way out.  Genetic
engineering and good planning ought to do the job, but is clearly well beyond
even Crazy Eddie (How secure would _you_ feel about drastically redesigning
the human species?)  I don't see the Moties do it, they're fatalists.



SR

PS another poster mentioned that this discussion should be in .science; I have
   cross-posted and redirected follow-ups there.
---
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA