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"There are two ways of viewing evolution, through the spectacles of either the Red Queen or the Court Jester. The Red Queen model (1) stems from Darwin, who viewed evolution as primarily a balance of biotic pressures, most notably competition, and it was characterized by the Red Queen’s statement to Alice in Through the Looking-Glass that “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
The Court Jester model (2) is that evolution, speciation, and extinction rarely happen except in response to unpredictable changes in the physical environment, recalling the capricious behavior of the licensed fool of Medieval times. Neither model was proposed as exclusive, and both Darwin and Van Valen (1) allowed for extrinsic influences on evolution in their primarily biotic, Red Queen views.
Species diversity in a Red Queen world depends primarily on intrinsic factors, such as body size, breadth of physiological tolerance, or adaptability to hard times. In a Court Jester world, species diversity depends on fluctuations in climate, landscape, and food supply. In reality, of course, both aspects might prevail in different ways and at different times, what could perhaps be called the multilevel mixed model. Traditionally, biologists have tended to think in a Red Queen, Darwinian, intrinsic, biotic factors way, and geologists in a Court Jester, extrinsic, physical factors way."
"Strategy and the Business Landscape" de Pankaj Ghemawat.