Thursday October 31, 2019
Red Queen hypothesis
PRONUNCIATION: (red kween hy-POTH-uh-sis)
MEANING: noun: The hypothesis that organisms must constantly adapt and evolve in order to survive in an evolutionary arms race.
ETYMOLOGY: Proposed by the biologist Leigh Van Valen (1935-2010). Earliest documented use: 1973.
NOTES: In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass the Red Queen tells Alice: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.” Evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen used that as a metaphor to describe how competing species must keep up with one another. For example, in a predator and prey relationship, if the prey evolves to run faster, the predator must keep up or go extinct.
USAGE: “The Red Queen hypothesis — adapt or die — offers a particularly dour outlook for those who measure their pulse online. Alice never gains any Instagram followers. Her extinction is internet invisibility.” Kaitlin Phillips; In This Tale of Online Intimacy, the Only Wise Characters Are Luddites; The New York Times; Apr 13, 2017.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: There is a budding morrow in midnight. -John Keats, poet (31 Oct 1795-1821)
tktorme 