A
recent
Science News piece reports research indicating
that “bacteria assassinating each other when crowded together
ironically can favor the evolution of cooperation.” This happens
when different strains of bacteria are initially mixed randomly.
Using their own brand of natural antibiotic, each bacterium launches
an attack on its neighbors from different strains. This eventually
leads – through a kind of bacterial ethnic conflict – to clumps
of same strain bacteria that can then shift from expending energy on
warfare with opposing clumps to cooperating with each other in its
same-strain clump. As the researcher summed up: “This
resulting clumpy distribution, despite its murderous origin, favors
the rise of cooperation, such as secreting substances useful to a
whole community.”
This
seems quite clear and while not really surprising – like prefers like
– also suggests a possibly illuminating thought experiment.
Imagine a beneficent bacterial power – lets call it the USA (Union
for Safe Association) – that seeks to use carrots and sticks –
super-antibacterial agents plus sugar – to push the different
strains into coexisting rather than trying to kill each other. This
would require maintaining an unnatural balance and might never
succeed in making each bacterium focus its energies on anything but
finding other ways to win living space. Perhaps it could work as
long as the USA worked diligently, non-stop and forever. But should
the effort lag, nature would probably just take its course.
Despite
billions of years of evolution, identity-specific living organisms –
strains – seem to follow the same imperative to clump. This is the
state of nature. Past human experience suggests that there are only
a few ways to establish a stable order out of mixture: strong,
perhaps brutal central rule (whether from inside or outside, a
Leviathan), sufficient nutrient (wealth) to allow all strains a piece
of the pie (Western liberal democracy), or letting nature take its
course (“ethnic” conflict finally ending in more or less
homogeneous entities that at least have that to be proud of). Does
the human species suggest better?
