There's an old saying that there's more than one way to skin a cat. Now, before any of you cat lovers get upset, I'm not advocating cat-skinning. I'm merely pointing out that there isn't necessarily any one best way for accomplishing many things. We sometimes sneer at what may appear to be the clumsy way some animals and plants go about doing things. But just as often as we do, we forget something about living things. Namely, the fact that they're around at all proves that they have been highly successful. After all, as many ways as there are to do things right, there are many, many more ways to do things wrong.
That a species survives is prima facie evidence that it's picked
its way successfully through the mine fields of natural selection. Of course, as the
advertisements for stocks constantly remind us, past performance is no guarantee of
future success. Humans are changing the nature of this planet so rapidly that past
strategies of survival will no longer be good enough for many plants and animals.
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.