Why unfit species also have their place in nature.
Analysis: Contrary to Darwinian orthodoxy, the natural world tolerates the useless, the average, and the poorly adapted. Over fifteen years, Daniel S. Milo sifted through the scientific literature and formulated this iconoclastic thesis.
At the last page of his doctoral thesis in philosophy, Daniel S. Milo included a quote from Luis Fernandez – yes, the former midfielder of the French national football team. This playful gesture towards the academic world brings a smile to the face of the 70-year-old Franco-Israeli philosopher, who is an avid reader of “L’Equipe”. It’s quite characteristic of him. For three decades, he was a prominent professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), always injecting a touch of whimsy into the austere furrows of thought.
“I only claim Socrates as my master,” he confides during a video call from his shaded home by the Sea of Galilee in Israel, where he spends his retirement. Like Socrates, the wanderer who merely posed innocent questions to expose inconsistencies among his contemporaries, Daniel S. Milo hopes to appear unassuming, a mere passerby. “I infiltrate a field, but it’s not the field itself that interests me. I engage with it through my questioning.”
Daniel S. Milo’s approach mirrors that of Socrates, using inquiry to challenge and provoke thought rather than accepting conventional wisdom.