For hundreds of years biologists have essentially fully accepted Darwin’s theory of “Survival of the Fittest;” but, have they been wrong all this time? Scientists believe that there could be a link from high metabolic rates to extinction. Luke Strotz, scientist and researcher at the University of Kansas, studied the effect of metabolic intake, energy intake by an organism, in mollusks.
Strotz and his team decided to use mollusks as their objects of interest due to the sheer abundance of data that they could retrieve from the past 5 million years. Strotz observed that certain mollusk species with higher energy intakes are extinct; while, mollusks species that have considerably lower metabolic intakes are still in existence today. Thus, in the mollusk group, it was quite clear that the higher metabolic rate correlated with faster extinction. Although this study is quite primitive in nature, and thus should not be compared to humans, it is perplexing to see that a species in the mollusk group can continue to exist because of its “laziness” or low metabolic intake.
Although Strotz’s evidence is convincing, I personally do not believe that “Survival of the Laziest” should be taken seriously, as mollusks are extremely different from humans. Thus, it would be illogical to compare the correlation of this study to that of the lives of humans. So, unfortunately, it appears laziness is most likely not a trait that the human race should endorse.
What do you think? Can laziness really save the human race? Only time will tell.
The research from Luke Strotz is published in the journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Leave a Reply