Reflection: Grass

Today, I want to do something a little different with my blog post. Normally, I try and focus solely on political aspects and interpretation of the books we read. Rarely have I deviated from the social sciences in these analyses. But lately, my own opinion of the social sciences has changed, so I think my kind of analyses of these books needs to change too. In a nutshell, I can summarize my view of social sciences very simple: they are only reflections of the ecology and biology of the human race. For example, under my system of analyses, war is caused by a number of ecological factors seen in ecosystems, such as a competitive niche (two groups wanting the same resources).

Of course, this gets more complex as we go, but always boils down to ecological and biological factors. One might struggle to explain a war based purely on ideologies and, say, religion. However, I challenge someone to argue that these wars are NOT due to either side seeing fundamental differences between themselves (I highlight "seeing", as there probably is no significant biological difference actually in play). We know from evolutionary biology that genes are inherently selfish - their evolution must include this, for non-selfish genes are quickly eliminated from the gene pool by selfish genes. Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene, his first of many remarkable books on evolution and ecology, takes this conclusion to its logical outcome - that the only way for genes to truly be selfish and preserve themselves to to exhibit phenotypes that promote their selfish tendencies (I speak of genes in a personified manner, which is of course in error - what they actually reflect is tendencies within a limited statistical system known as natural selection - it's just easier to write them as acting on their own, though). This means that successful species exhibit phenotypes which preclude "otherness". (To answer the religious war example, we see that because humans possess genes which want to destroy otherness to preserve themselves, then its an advantage for these genes to attack what they perceive as otherness).

Which, at this point, is how I connect Mr Dawkins' and my views back to Grass. Isn't that the whole point of this class, to discuss human reactions to otherness? Well, if we apply these biological principles to the systems that we've looked as so far, then things are illuminated totally different. Suddenly it's no longer a question of whether another species is humane or inhumane, it's a question of whether our biology allows for our coexistence or not based on completely other factors than whether they're "nice or not". So, how can we estimate whether or not we're going to kill each other?

A model in ecology, called the Lotka-Volterra model, allows us to look more closely at this. It attempts to look at factors seen in ecosystems and give them quantitative values which allow us to predict how species will react to one another. Since survival is often based completely on resources and competition for resources, the model I'm going to present is the Lotka-Volterra model of competition between two species. This is also a good model for what's happening in Grass. Remember: in Grass, humanity is now competing for a resources the Hippae have, the planet itself.

There are four results in the Lotka-Volterra model of competition based on four variables. The first two variables are called coefficients of competition, and are called a12 and a21. Simply put, they are the competitive effects of one species on another (we'll called humans 1 and Hippae 2 - a12 is the effect of humans on Hippae, and a21 is the effect of Hippae on humans). The other two variables are K1 and K2, or population equilibriums. These factors tell us the maximum number of that species the ecosystem can hold (for example, a forest may supply enough food for 100,000 butterflies, but any more than 100,000 the species will begin to starve, bringing the number back down to 100,000). Let's look at the four outcomes when we plot all four variables.

As you can see, of the 4 options, only ONE does not result in the destruction of one of the species (in fact, the unstable equilibrium kills BOTH). And in this stable equilibrium, there is an requirement of each of the four variables, that cannot change. To put it simply, stable equilibrium in close competition for resources is extremely rare - you just don't see it that often in nature. But of course, that's not to say it doesn't happen.

Let's get to the crux of the question - is this kind of thing happening in Grass? We know from what First tells us that the Hippae were once normal - they did not have such malice towards the world, and they were able to all transform into the foxen. But a mutation happened, and they began to produce their own eggs and peepers, and began killing for joy. Their first victims were the Arbai, unsurprisingly. When I first read about the Arbai, my gut reaction was "they would never make it that far". In my mind, I went back to the prisoner's dilemma, and related the Arbai to a player which would always trust instead of defect. So, naturally, they would be destroyed. Were the Arbai, however, competing with the Hippae for resources on Grass? It's hard to know completely, but it seems the competitive effect of the Arbai was low on the Hippae, but the competitive effect of the Hippae on the Arbai was huge - so naturally the Arbai were eliminated. Though the influence of the Hippae on the humans is probably equivalent to what it was for the Arbai, clearly the humans possess the ability to have a significantly more deadly effect on the Hippae. So, yes, we can apply our model to the species on Grass.

Is Tepper trying to tell us directly to use this model for her book? I bet not. But regardless, it works here, and I suspect Tepper did in fact have a message regarding ecosystems. Tepper seems to grasp that these kinds of systems are held in a delicate balance, that one change can offset a system that leads to the extinction of another. In this case, the mutation of the Hippae allowed them to become more fit than the Arbai, humans, and even the foxen, and this radically changed the world around them. What this mutation was caused by, we can't be sure, but Tepper seems to say that the influence of the Arbai may have brought about this sick mutation in the Hippae (I for one do not believe that we can call the Hippae "evil", there's no such thing in biology, and in fact there are many species on earth that act as sadistically as the Hippae, or more so. A cool example is the nematode that infects a snails brain to make it become more obvious to predators, so the nematode can transfer itself from the snail into the stomach of the bird and parasitize the bird. Sound like the Hippae much?)