Weapon evolution is judged by competition among designs, not human survival

Evidence

As long as we focus on the weapons—antlers and rifles—rather than the animals or humans using them, comparison of their respective evolutionary paths is relevant and informative. It’s only when we start confounding rifle evolution with human evolution that things get murky. Assault rifles clearly affect the survival of humans. After all, they’re used to kill people. Dead people don’t have babies, so rifles also affect reproductive success. But these are not the metrics that matter for rifle evolution. What matters for the success or failure of a specific type of rifle is how well it performs relative to the other rifle models in existence at the same time. The same can be said for ships, castles, and catapults. Designs that work are copied and spread; those that fail are abandoned. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 506

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes evolutionary-arms-race logic from earlier antler and weapon chapters. — connects to: Markets and battlefields select among rifle designs like natural selection acts on weapons; Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 136; Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 525 (+1 more)

Related

• Markets and battlefields select among rifle designs like natural selection acts on weapons (similarity 0.90)
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons (similarity 0.89)
• Comparisons of animal and human weapons have a long scholarly tradition. (similarity 0.88)
• Human and animal arms races follow parallel evolutionary dynamics (similarity 0.88)
• The evolutionary drivers of animal weapons also explain human weapon elaboration. (similarity 0.88)
• Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons (similarity 0.88)
• Identical circumstances trigger and collapse arms races in animals and humans. (similarity 0.87)
• Weapons evolve only when reproductive benefits exceed costs (similarity 0.86)
• Weapon evolution needs both competition and economically defensible resources (similarity 0.86)
• Specific ecological circumstances must align before weapon arms races begin (similarity 0.85)
• Weapon size in animal species is under stabilizing selection, not open-ended directional selection (similarity 0.85)
• Reproductive success, not survival, drives the largest animal weapons (similarity 0.85)
• Biological weapons evolve through the same replication mechanism as their bearers (similarity 0.85)
• Fortification-artillery escalation mirrors predator-prey arms races, not rival contests (similarity 0.85)
• Dueling plus competition and defensibility is the general rule for extreme weapons (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Animal weapons evolved to extremes far beyond practical size #corroborates (0.65) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 2
• Competition for reproduction drives evolution of nature’s biggest weapons #expands (0.60) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 136
• Human fortifications and artillery evolve via the same arms-race logic as animal weapons #expands (0.55) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 525