Evolutionary Arms Races

Metaphor: Evolution is often framed as an “arms race,” with species imagined as rival nations locked in perpetual military escalation. Predators sharpen their claws, prey reinforce their armour, parasites invent sneakier invasions, and hosts roll out new defence systems — all mapped onto the imagery of war.

Problem / Misleading Aspect: The metaphor imports human geopolitics into biology, suggesting linear escalation, rivalry, and zero-sum competition. It obscures the fact that evolution is not about armies and weaponry but about relational adaptation and co-constitution. Many so-called “arms races” resolve not in endless escalation but in stabilisation, cooperation, or diversification. By treating evolution as militarised rivalry, the metaphor smuggles in ideas of aggression, dominance, and strategy, while neglecting the quieter realities of coexistence and symbiosis.

Relational Ontology Correction: Evolutionary dynamics are not war games. They are processes of relational actualisation, where species co-shape each other’s possibilities. Predator and prey, parasite and host, plant and pollinator — these are entanglements, not battlefields. Adaptations emerge through alignment and misalignment across systems, not through generals plotting victory on a cosmic war map.

Parody: If evolution were truly an arms race, crabs would be NATO members, orchids would design stealth bombers, and bats would file patents for sonar-guided missiles. Biologists would be summoned to arms-control treaties, and Darwin would be remembered as the first war correspondent of the natural world. The absurdity reveals the misstep: life’s creativity reduced to military escalation, when its richness lies in relational transformation.