[ggm]

For my uni ecology course back in 1980 I read about a predator prey experiment consisting of hundreds of oranges connected by string bridges and a mite, with a predator. They really struggled to get multi generational scale.

What I read in this is that models for the natural environment with "a couple of simplifications" generally crash fast because real world systems are much more complex.

Maybe what he needed for rodent heaven 25 was a more complex situation to model? Add Cats? Fleas? Diseases? Maybe heaven demands adversity?

[Asooka]

Heaven requires that your birth rate stays at around replacement rate, which for humans is easy - a human female rarely gives birth to more than one baby at a time, but a mouse female on average gives birth to a litter of six. The only way for mice to escape the population bomb is by killing babies.

[cobertos]

I think removal of adversity was the point. Optimizing away adversity just as collective humanity tries to.

> Incidentally, after Universe 25’s collapse, Calhoun began building new utopias to encourage creative behavior by keeping mice physically _and_ mentally nourished.

I think I'd be more interested in the follow up work. Were they even able to identify and accomplish this? And how did the rats perform any better?

[shermantanktop]

There’s a documentary about it called “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.”