Tuesday, December 19, 2006 Why We Should Always Question.. There
are many moments in time that we look back at now...which will
always lead to us to slap our foreheads and say, "stupid,
stupid, stupid". There is one such moment that continues to be
brought up in the most general science classes..as if to
say.."if you don't test and retest...we will ridicule you for
years to come". This example is of course the lemming. Lemmings
were believed to commit, "The Lemming Suicide Plunge" when the
population became too numerous. It was really believed that
millions of lemmings would be overcome by a hard-wired impulse
to dash to their death by hurling themselves over a cliff to the
rocks below or by plunging into the sea to die a horrible death
by drowning. The reasoning behind this was thought to be a deep-
rooted act of altruistic behavior resulting the greater good for
the species. However, you can probably guess, this is not the
case. Shown to the right is a famous Far Side cartoon dipicting
natural selection in a