29 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Survival of the Stable
Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' is really a special case of a more general
law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things.
A stable thing is a collection of atoms that is permanent enough or
common enough to deserve a name. It may be a unique collection of
atoms, such as the Matterhorn, that lasts long enough to be worth
naming. Or it may be a class of entities, such as rain drops, that come
into existence at a sufficiently high rate to deserve a collective name,...One of the characteristics of a successful species is stability.