In his book At Home in the Universe Dr. Stuart Kauffman, a scientist in search of the laws of self organization and complexity at Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, compares life and all its millions of ecosystems to a sand pile. Sand, added one grain at a time, often doesn't have a lot of impact. But there comes a point when a single grain of sand will cause an disruption or avalanche. The sand pile is always on the edge of 'chaos', says Kauffman, a lot of small avalanches and a few big ones between spurts of growth. All entities are built in this same manner, says Kauffman, some faster than others, but alternating between growth and disintegration.
Ecosystems have bursts of creation followed by slow death, extended by renewed bursts of creation.
How adaptable how well we bounce back from disaster ultimately determines survival rate. Kauffman has built complex charts, graphs and models of sand avalanches to predict transitions and event outcomes. Six tends to hasten disintegration, while four tends to be frozen and inflexible.