In a world that is finite, is bigger better or just fewer and hence more fragile to unexpected change ?

Are we safer with a small gene pool of only the most useful genes or with a big gene pool filled with genes we haven't yet seen any value in ?

The world we live in is indeed finite, and this allows us to imagine two extreme earthly biospheres, set along a continuum of numbers of beings from high to low.

One is a biosphere sustaining a trillion trillion trillion tiny microbes and one is a biosphere sustaining a hundred thousand big blue whales.

A tendency towards bigger entities, in a finite world, must always tend to fewer entities compared to a tendency, in a finite world, to see more of the smaller entity.

A single species populating the earth with hundred thousand blue whales represents a very small set of underused genes for a biosphere to meet the crisis of a pronounced trend to hotter climate, leading to the drying up the oceans.

But a trillion trillion trillion microbes probably represents a million distinct species and an enormous amount of underused genes to allow this biosphere to successfully adopt to a much hotter climate.

The 1940s complaint against preserving and even expanding the existing gene pool came down to the philosophic and scientific virtues of simplicity (aka overcoming personal ambiguity anxiety with a PhD) --- it was messy and untidy to have all these junk genes lying about the garage - simply 'pick the best and bin the rest'.

This implied that the future, like the present and the past, was simple, stable, predictable, controllable ---- a notion that you either accepted or rejected.

Most scientists in 1940, perhaps even today, accepted the future was simple and predictable.

Dr Martin Henry Dawson did not ---- his was a messy garage, just filled with junk genes that you never knew might come in handy some day....

Reality : 'parsimony' or 'plentitude' ? ---- Modernity and Commensality's choices

Both parsimony and plentitude are well worn terms (with relatively precise meanings) within the world of science ---- but buttressing each scientific term are two long standing but wildly varying philosophies of life that we all must chose between.

The two philosophies agree just once : in both accepting that current - readily observable - reality does appear to be very dynamic and complex.

But only one philosophy accepts that this vision of ever-dynamic complexity is probably as about as accurate a version of reality that we humans are ever likely to get.

The other philosophy derides that view as a 'false consciousness' and craves to find a much simpler , more predictable, stable and controllable reality buried somewhere deep in that heaving surface morass.

I think it is fair to say that the Era of Modernity (1875-1965) chose the philosophy of parsimony and the Era of Commensality (1965- ?) has chosen the philosophy of plentitude.

For parsimony sees reality as akin to thermoset polymers and says that there are always winners and always single best solutions.

And that moreover we can readily determine them and congeal them for all time.

While plentitude sees reality as rather like thermoplastic polymers and says there are no winners or losers - just ever-plastic life in all its complexities.

It says that history has shown we haven't had much happiness when we set out to exalt the winners and to holocaust the losers....