"Some events do not belong to time; they become timeless in their tragedy."

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“nature red in tooth and claw.” This comes from Lord Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam A.H.H. 1883,” which was actually written before the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. In some cases, notably predation, natural selection indeed involves red teeth and gore-bedecked claws. Sometimes, bloody competition characterizes intraspecies competition, but mostly it operates via differential reproduction—whereby some individuals and their genes leave more descendants than their competitors—which sometimes favors cooperation rather than violence. In any event, the key is reproductive success, not necessarily fighting prowess.

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Giraffes didn’t evolve long necks because they stretched to reach leaves. 

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