I’ve just returned from an excursion to the California redwood country, where – like everyone else – I’ve been bowled over by the redwoods themselves. They are, to use a word much abused these days, nothing less than awesome.

It’s easy to see why John Muir described them as constituting “nature’s cathedral,” and for me, at least, it doesn’t diminish that sense of awe (if anything, it enhances it), to inquire how this particular cathedral was constructed, which is to say, why have these magnificent creatures evolved to be so downright spectacular?

One interesting possibility, albeit certainly not the only one, is that they are prisoners of a game theoretic dilemma, in which certain critters (including, on occasion, our own species) find themselves stuck with a seemingly fitness-maximizing tactic that actually results in everyone being worse off as a result.

Here…

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