The principle of zero change in success rate, no matter how great the evolutionary progress in equipment, has been given the memorable name of the 'Red Queen effect' by the American biologist Leigh van Valen. In Through the Looking Glass, you will remember, the Red Queen seized Alice by the hand and dragged her, faster and faster, on a frenzied run through the countryside, but no matter how fast they ran they always stayed in the same place. Alice was understandably puzzled, saying, 'Well in our country you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing.' 'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. 'Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'
The Red Queen label is amusing, but it can be misleading if taken (as it sometimes is) to mean something mathematically precise, literally zero relative progress. Another misleading feature is that in the Alice story the Red Queen's statement is genuinely paradoxical, irreconcilable with common sense in the real physical world. But van Valen's evolutionary Red Queen effect is not paradoxical at all. It is entirely in accordance with common sense, so long as common sense is intelligently applied. If not paradoxical, however, arms races can give rise to situations that strike the economically minded human as wasteful.
