Physical and Biological Basis of Man’s Adaptation to His Environment

A study of interrelationships of an organisms with it environment.

Adoption

Adoption implies change, both in the organisms and it environment, since change in one may elicit change in the other.

Change

Change is the stuff which evolution is made.

The study of human ecology, then, rest on the principles of evolution — on the complex and ever changing interactions of organisms with each other and with the physical surroundings.

It is difficult to omit the ideas of progress from evolution.

In fact, that is what the doctrine of emergent evolution is all about. The general trend of evolution is towards increasing complexity, and the properties of complex systems cannot, in our present state of understanding, necessarily be predicted from knowledge of Their components.

Thus it is not possible to predict the properties of an atom from knowledge of protons and elections, or of molecules from knowledge of atoms.

Aggregates of molecules have properties vastly different from individual molecules because new properties emerge from the association of the molecules in groups.

The phenomenon of life cannot be predicted from study of inorganic chemistry.

The Amazing development of their things we called man’s mind is not foreshadowed in brainless form of life.

Finally, any organism that is known only in isolation from it normal surroundings is poorly known.

That is why extrapolations from laboratory to died conditions are so risky. It is also why the study of ecology is important.

Adaptive Change in All Organisms

Adaptive change in all organisms, including man, are mediated by change in the information encoded in the hereditary material that is passed on from generation to generation.

This change are random. If they are helpful, the organisms survives and produces offering which are better adopted than organisms without charge. If the changes harmful, the organisms bearing them are less well adopted and are less likely to survived and reproduce.

Nature has experimented with many creature since life began.

Only a faction of them were ever successful, and only a fraction of those successful ones survive today.