[ExI] Jacques Cousteau on evolution and survival

[Damien Broderick]

>There would be very little if any change without the environmental 
>changes or the death of those who couldn't cope with it.

There might well be lots of incremental genome/phenotype changes 
without any environment changes at all, as first clumsy 
approximations to use of environmental affordances get fine tuned in 
generation after generation through mutation and selection; what's 
more, the less fit need not *die* more swiftly, just not breed as 
abundantly, so that their fecundity is less competitive. Americans on 
average die later than many African or Middle Eastern Muslims, yet 
the fertility of the latter might massively exceed that of the 
former. They inhabit different *memetic* environments, it's true, but 
I doubt that's what Cousteau had in mind (could be comparable, though).

Damien Broderick