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Court Jester Hypothesis
Encyclopedia
The Court Jester hypothesis is a term coined by University of California, Berkeley
professor Anthony D. Barnosky in 1999, that describes the antithesis of the Red Queen Hypothesis in evolutionary theory. It refers to the idea that abiotic forces including climate
, rather that biotic competition between species, is a major driving force behind the processes in evolution
that produce speciation
.
, in 1973, in a reference to the Lewis Carroll
book Through the Looking Glass and refers in evolution theory to the arms race of evolutionary developments and counter-developments that cause co-evolving species to mutually drive each other to adapt. There is dispute over how strongly evolution at the scale of speciation is driven by these competitions between species
, and how much it is driven instead by abiotic factors like meteor
strikes and climate change, but there was not an artful metaphor to capture this alternative until one was coined by Anthony Barnosky. The term "Court Jester hypothesis" was coined by Anthony Barnosky in 1999 in reference to the Red Queen hypothesis.
In a 2001 paper on the subject, Barnosky uses the term without citation, suggesting that he is the one who coined it. Westfall and Millar attribute the term to him (citing the 2001 paper) in a paper of their own from 2004. Michael Benton also credits Barnosky with coining the phrase.
Since 2001, many researchers in evolution (such as Tracy Aze, Anthony Barnosky, Michael J. Benton, Douglas Erwin, Thomas Ezard, Sergey Gravilets, J.B.C. Jackson, Constance I. Millar, Paul N. Pearson, Andy Purvis, Robert D. Westfall, and Constance I. Millar) have all started to use the term "Court Jester hypothesis" to describe the view that evolution at a macro scale is driven by abiotic factors more than the biotic competition called the Red Queen hypothesis. The Court Jester hypothesis is a term that has largely replaced many of the earlier names for this general concept in the scientific literature.
(1972) by providing a primary mechanism for it. The 2001 paper by Barnosky that is one of the first to use the term appropriates for the Court Jester side of the debate: the Stability hypothesis of Stenseth and Maynard Smith (1984), Vrba's Habitat Theory (1992), Vrba's Turn-over pulse hypothesis (1985), Vrba's Traffic light hypothesis and Relay Model (1995), Gould's Tiers of Time (1985), Brett and Baird's Coordinated Statis (1995), and Graham and Lundelius' Coevolutionary Disequilibrium (1984) theories.
Barnosky's 2001 paper that was one of the first to introduce the term, explains what the Court Jester hypothesis means, describing it as one side of a debate over:
"[W]hether this march of morphology and species compositions through time, so well documented not only for mammals but throughout the fossil record, is more strongly influenced by interactions among species (Red Queen hypotheses), or by random perturbations to the physical environment such as climate change, tectonic events, or even bolide impacts that change the ground rules for the biota (Court Jester hypotheses). . . . A class of alternative ideas, here termed Court Jester hypotheses, share the basic tenet that changes in the physical environment rather than biotic interactions themselves are the initiators of major changes in organisms and ecosystems. . . . Court Jester hypotheses imply that events random in respect to the biota occasionally change the rules on the biotic playing field. Accelerated biotic response (relative to background rates) is the result."
Barnosky acknowledges in the 2001 paper that the Court Jester hypothesis is not necessary inconsistent with the Red Queen hypothesis:
"Indeed, as Ned Johnson remarked (after listening to a lecture expressing these ideas), ‘‘Maybe it is time for the Court Jester to marry the Red Queen.’’ That is, perhaps the dichotomy between the two hypotheses is really a dichotomy of scale, and that as we look for ways to travel across biological levels, we will find ways to resolve the dichotomies."
is coined in reference to the Red Queen hypothesis, the Jester reference, metaphorically, is not a direct reference to Through The Looking Glass, the Lewis Carroll book from which the Red Queen metaphor is derived, or his companion book about Alice, Alice in Wonderland. There is no Court Jester in either book.
Instead, the term plays on the notion of both a Queen
and a Jester historically both being part of a royal court
.
The Court Jester metaphor uses the term "Court Jester" in the sense of its meaning in the Tarot
, where the Jester or Fool
is the symbol of death triumphing over all. As the Wikipedia entry on the term Jester explains, this card "includes a man (or less often, a woman) juggling unconcernedly or otherwise distracted, with a dog (sometimes cat) at his heels. The fool is in the act of unknowingly walking off the edge of a cliff, precipice or other high place. Another Tarot character is Death. In the Middle Ages, Death is often shown in Jester's garb because "The last laugh is reserved for death." Also, Death humbles everyone just as jesters make fun of everyone regardless of standing."
Additionally, the Court Jester terminology metaphorically implicates the Joker
card in a deck of cards that can upset the settled order and the related notion that a Court Jester is a disinterested player that has no stake or interests in the impact of his actions on any of the competing parties (since this theory posits a natural, random, abiotic cause). As the Wikipedia article on the Jester explains:
"The position of the Joker playing card, as a wild card which has no fixed place in the hierarchy of King, Queen, Knave, etc. might be a remnant of the position of the court jester. This lack of any place in the hierarchy meant Kings could trust the counsel of the jesters, as they had no vested interest in any region, estate or church."
Thus, the Court Jester hypothesis posits that all living things are overcome when they go extinct as a result of the random intervention of an abiotic outsider (the Jester) who is not a party to their Red Queen hypothesis struggles, upsetting the old status quo and opening the door for a spurt of rapid adaptive macroevolution.
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
professor Anthony D. Barnosky in 1999, that describes the antithesis of the Red Queen Hypothesis in evolutionary theory. It refers to the idea that abiotic forces including climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
, rather that biotic competition between species, is a major driving force behind the processes in evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
that produce speciation
Speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or 'cladogenesis,' as opposed to 'anagenesis' or 'phyletic evolution' occurring within lineages...
.
History
The Red Queen hypothesis is a term coined by Leigh Van ValenLeigh Van Valen
Leigh Maiorana Van Valen was an American evolutionary biologist. He was professor emeritus in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago....
, in 1973, in a reference to the Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
book Through the Looking Glass and refers in evolution theory to the arms race of evolutionary developments and counter-developments that cause co-evolving species to mutually drive each other to adapt. There is dispute over how strongly evolution at the scale of speciation is driven by these competitions between species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
, and how much it is driven instead by abiotic factors like meteor
METEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
strikes and climate change, but there was not an artful metaphor to capture this alternative until one was coined by Anthony Barnosky. The term "Court Jester hypothesis" was coined by Anthony Barnosky in 1999 in reference to the Red Queen hypothesis.
In a 2001 paper on the subject, Barnosky uses the term without citation, suggesting that he is the one who coined it. Westfall and Millar attribute the term to him (citing the 2001 paper) in a paper of their own from 2004. Michael Benton also credits Barnosky with coining the phrase.
Since 2001, many researchers in evolution (such as Tracy Aze, Anthony Barnosky, Michael J. Benton, Douglas Erwin, Thomas Ezard, Sergey Gravilets, J.B.C. Jackson, Constance I. Millar, Paul N. Pearson, Andy Purvis, Robert D. Westfall, and Constance I. Millar) have all started to use the term "Court Jester hypothesis" to describe the view that evolution at a macro scale is driven by abiotic factors more than the biotic competition called the Red Queen hypothesis. The Court Jester hypothesis is a term that has largely replaced many of the earlier names for this general concept in the scientific literature.
Content of Theory
The Court Jester hypothesis builds upon the punctuated equalibrium theory of Stephen GouldStephen Gould
Stephen Gould is an American heldentenor, born in Virginia.Having started in musical theatre, in 2006 he performed the title-role of Siegfried in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth...
(1972) by providing a primary mechanism for it. The 2001 paper by Barnosky that is one of the first to use the term appropriates for the Court Jester side of the debate: the Stability hypothesis of Stenseth and Maynard Smith (1984), Vrba's Habitat Theory (1992), Vrba's Turn-over pulse hypothesis (1985), Vrba's Traffic light hypothesis and Relay Model (1995), Gould's Tiers of Time (1985), Brett and Baird's Coordinated Statis (1995), and Graham and Lundelius' Coevolutionary Disequilibrium (1984) theories.
Barnosky's 2001 paper that was one of the first to introduce the term, explains what the Court Jester hypothesis means, describing it as one side of a debate over:
"[W]hether this march of morphology and species compositions through time, so well documented not only for mammals but throughout the fossil record, is more strongly influenced by interactions among species (Red Queen hypotheses), or by random perturbations to the physical environment such as climate change, tectonic events, or even bolide impacts that change the ground rules for the biota (Court Jester hypotheses). . . . A class of alternative ideas, here termed Court Jester hypotheses, share the basic tenet that changes in the physical environment rather than biotic interactions themselves are the initiators of major changes in organisms and ecosystems. . . . Court Jester hypotheses imply that events random in respect to the biota occasionally change the rules on the biotic playing field. Accelerated biotic response (relative to background rates) is the result."
Barnosky acknowledges in the 2001 paper that the Court Jester hypothesis is not necessary inconsistent with the Red Queen hypothesis:
"Indeed, as Ned Johnson remarked (after listening to a lecture expressing these ideas), ‘‘Maybe it is time for the Court Jester to marry the Red Queen.’’ That is, perhaps the dichotomy between the two hypotheses is really a dichotomy of scale, and that as we look for ways to travel across biological levels, we will find ways to resolve the dichotomies."
Metaphorical Reference
Despite the fact that the Court Jester metaphorMetaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
is coined in reference to the Red Queen hypothesis, the Jester reference, metaphorically, is not a direct reference to Through The Looking Glass, the Lewis Carroll book from which the Red Queen metaphor is derived, or his companion book about Alice, Alice in Wonderland. There is no Court Jester in either book.
Instead, the term plays on the notion of both a Queen
Queen regnant
A queen regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right, in contrast to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king. An empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an empire....
and a Jester historically both being part of a royal court
Royal court
Royal court, as distinguished from a court of law, may refer to:* The Royal Court , Timbaland's production company*Court , the household and entourage of a monarch or other ruler, the princely court...
.
The Court Jester metaphor uses the term "Court Jester" in the sense of its meaning in the Tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
, where the Jester or Fool
The Fool (Tarot card)
The Fool or The Jester is one of the 78 cards in a Tarot deck; one of the 22 Trump cards that make up the Major Arcana. The Fool is unnumbered...
is the symbol of death triumphing over all. As the Wikipedia entry on the term Jester explains, this card "includes a man (or less often, a woman) juggling unconcernedly or otherwise distracted, with a dog (sometimes cat) at his heels. The fool is in the act of unknowingly walking off the edge of a cliff, precipice or other high place. Another Tarot character is Death. In the Middle Ages, Death is often shown in Jester's garb because "The last laugh is reserved for death." Also, Death humbles everyone just as jesters make fun of everyone regardless of standing."
Additionally, the Court Jester terminology metaphorically implicates the Joker
Joker (playing card)
Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...
card in a deck of cards that can upset the settled order and the related notion that a Court Jester is a disinterested player that has no stake or interests in the impact of his actions on any of the competing parties (since this theory posits a natural, random, abiotic cause). As the Wikipedia article on the Jester explains:
"The position of the Joker playing card, as a wild card which has no fixed place in the hierarchy of King, Queen, Knave, etc. might be a remnant of the position of the court jester. This lack of any place in the hierarchy meant Kings could trust the counsel of the jesters, as they had no vested interest in any region, estate or church."
Thus, the Court Jester hypothesis posits that all living things are overcome when they go extinct as a result of the random intervention of an abiotic outsider (the Jester) who is not a party to their Red Queen hypothesis struggles, upsetting the old status quo and opening the door for a spurt of rapid adaptive macroevolution.