Margin of Safety

Biological Parallel

Arctic ground squirrels entering hibernation with 40% body fat don't just meet their winter energy needs—they exceed them by a critical buffer. This metabolic margin protects against unexpectedly long winters, failed spring foraging, or injury during emergence. Graham's margin of safety mirrors this principle: organisms that calibrate resource reserves to worst-case scenarios, not average conditions, survive selection pressures that eliminate optimally-efficient competitors.