Section 9 - Correspondence to Reality
Is this a realistic system?
There are several things wrong with it, mostly because it is, of necessity, an
oversimplification of nature.
- It assumes that "child care" is perfect -- no children are ever
caught by predators.
- It assumes that one adult can take care of as many children as
necessary -- even
when there is only one adult but many children, children remain (in this system)
invulnerable to predators.
- It makes no allowance for over-crowding of prey except the increase of
predators,
and it makes no allowance for over-crowding of predators except the decrease of
prey
- It makes no allowance for other animals or plants and how their
populations might affect x and y
- It makes no allowance for natural conditions such as winter, drought,
etc...
- The death rate is the same for both children and adults.
- It assumes that one can have .01 predators (for example). Even if our
unit is not one predator and is rather one thousand predators, the system still allows the populations
to get infinitely small and then rebound.
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