Natural Selection Theory Quotes
This is the first use of the famous phrase—“survival of the fittest.” Spencer thought of it as a synonym for Darwin’s “natural selection”, but modern scientists do not use the phrase because it is circular reasoning. It is the fittest who survive it implies when whichever species survives is obviously fittest for that time and place. It is also misinterpreted as a predation scale war which it is not. The lion is much stronger than the antelopes and feeds on them, but the lions are dying out while the antelopes are thriving and developing. The fittest may be so because the species is a faster and more reliable breeder. Most people with a limited knowledge of evolution and scince associate the fittest with the top predator. However, over time, most top predators have NOT survived as well as many other species which in a predation fight are weak, but are more can handle a wider climate range, can change rapidly in response to natural disaters, can breed efficiently, are resistant to diseases, require less food, and literally thousands of other factors.
He was commenting on the seemingly brilliant designs of organisms that evolution has brought about, so sophisticated, that planners could hardly have conceived of them. His point is that those organisms are the great successes which the failures have become extinct and the moderate successes have constantly gotten better.
Darwin initially did not use the phrase “survival of the fittest.” Herbert Spencer did in another context {627587}. With respect to evolution, some people mistakenly assume that this means that the strongest survive and the weak do not. But “fit” and “strong” are not synonymous. For example, the Lion is the strongest and top predator of the African Plain. An antelope, Thompson’s Gazelle, is tiny, not very fast, and has no defenses against the lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs. He is the most eaten animal on the Plain. Yet this gazelle is growing in numbers and is thriving while the lions are becoming an endangered species. The Thompson’s gazelle are more fit for that environment because they breed so fast and at such a young age and have multiple babies. They are more fit than the lions because they breed more prolifically. Other animals are seemingly endangered in one environment (like beaver in the United States) but thrive in another (the Southern tip of Argentina)
