SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest."

'''Survival of the fittest''' is a phrase which is a shorthand for a concept relating to competition for survival or predominance. Originally applied by Herbert Spencer in his ''Principles of Biology'' of 1864, Spencer drew parallels to his ideas of economics with Charles Darwin's theories of evolution by what Darwin termed natural selection.
The phrase is a metaphor, not a scientific description; and it is not generally used by biologists, who almost unanimously prefer to use the phrase "natural selection" exclusively.

History of the phrase

Is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?

"Survival of the fittest" and morality

Kropotkin and "survival of the fittest"

References

History of the phrase

While the British economist Herbert Spencer is often credited with introducing the phrase "survival of the fittest" in his 1851 work ''Social Statics'' (relating to free market economics) or his ''First Principles of a New system of Philosophy'' of 1862, he actually did not use the phrase until after reading Charles Darwin's ''On the Origin of Species''. and introduced it in his ''Principles of Biology'' of 1864, vol. 1, p. 444, writing "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." Pioneers of Psychology [2001 Tour] - School of Education & Psychology
Better Competition Advocacy Maurice E. Stucke
In ''The Man Versus The State'' of 1884 Spencer used this phrase to reinforce his social theories, writing "Thus by survival of the fittest, the militant type of society becomes characterized by profound confidence in the governing power, joined with a loyalty causing submission to it in all matters whatever." Companies which offer better goods and services survive better in the marketplace and tend to accumulate an ever-growing market share. Poorly-adapting companies will be forced out by better-adapting ones: "killed" by the competition.
In the first four editions of ''On the Origin of Species'', Darwin used the phrase "natural selection" [1] and preferred that phrase. However, Spencer's ''Principles of Biology'' drew parallels between his economic theories and Darwin's biological ones and made first use in print of the phrase "survival of the fittest". Darwin agreed with Alfred Russel Wallace that this phrase avoided the troublesome anthropomorphism of "selecting", though it "lost the analogy between nature's selection and the fanciers'." It was used by Darwin in the 5th edition of ''The Origin'' published on 10 February 1869, in a secondary header of Chapter 4 about natural selection [2] and at several places in the text, mostly using the phrase ''"Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest"''. He gave full credit to Spencer, writing "I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term natural selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient." At this time the word "fittest" would have primarily meant "most suitable" or "most appropriate" rather than "in the best physical shape".
In modern times, however, the phrase is widely used in popular literature as a catchphrase for any topic related or analogous to evolution and natural selection. It has thus been applied to principles of unrestrained competition, and it has been used extensively by both proponents and opponents of Social Darwinism. Its shortcomings as a description of Darwinian evolution have also become more apparent (see below).
Evolutionary biologists criticize how the term is used by non-scientists and the connotations that have grown around the term in popular culture. The phrase also does not help in conveying the complex nature of natural selection and modern biologists prefer and almost exclusively use the term natural selection. Indeed, in modern biology, the term fitness measures reproductive success and is not explicit about the specific ways in which organisms can be "fit" as in "having phenotypic characteristics which enhance survival and reproduction" (which was the meaning that Spencer had in mind).

Is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?

"Survival of the fittest" is sometimes claimed to be a tautology. The reasoning is that if one takes the term "fit" to mean "endowed with phenotypic characteristics which improve chances of survival and reproduction" (which is roughly how Spencer understood it), then "survival of the fittest" can simply be rewritten as "survival of those who are better equipped for surviving". While this is not ''exactly'' a tautology (we might imagine a benevolent deity or experimenter that would consistently favour the poorly adapted, and destroy well-adapted creatures, so that "survival of the fittest" might actually ''not'' occur), this is not a very informative statement: it simply reduces to a statement that the game of Life is not rigged in favour of the poorly adapted, which is not controversial. Furthermore, the expression ''does'' become a tautology if one uses the most widely accepted definition of "fitness" in modern biology, namely reproductive success itself (rather than any set of characters conducive to this reproductive success). This reasoning is sometimes used to claim that Darwin's entire theory of evolution by natural selection is fundamentally tautological, and therefore devoid of any explanatory power.
However, the expression "survival of the fittest" (taken on its own and out of context) gives a very incomplete account of the mechanism of natural selection. The reason is that it does not mention a key requirement for natural selection, namely the requirement of ''heritability''. It is true that the phrase "survival of the fittest", in and by itself, is a tautology if fitness is defined by survival and reproduction. However, natural selection is ''not'' just survival of the fittest. Natural selection is the portion of variation in reproductive success, that is caused by ''heritable'' characters (see the article on natural selection).
If certain heritable characters increase or decrease the chances of survival and reproduction of their bearers, then it follows mechanically (by definition of "heritable") that those characters that improve survival and reproduction will increase in frequency over generations. This is precisely what is called "evolution by natural selection." On the other hand, if the characters which lead to differential reproductive success are not heritable, then no meaningful evolution will occur, "survival of the fittest" or not: if improvement in reproductive success is caused by traits that are not heritable, then there is no reason why these traits should increase in frequency over generations. In other words, natural selection does not simply state that "survivors survive" or "reproducers reproduce"; rather, it states that "survivors survive, reproduce and ''therefore'' propagate any ''heritable'' characters which have affected their survival and reproductive success". This statement is not tautological: it hinges on the testable hypothesis that such fitness-impacting heritable variations actually exist (a hypothesis that has been amply confirmed.)
Skeptic Society founder and ''Skeptic'' magazine publisher Dr. Michael Shermer addresses this argument in his 1997 book, ''Why People Believe Weird Things'', in which he points out that although tautologies are sometimes the beginning of science, they are never the end, and that scientific principles like natural selection are testable and falsifiable by virtue of their predictive power. Shermer points out, as an example, that population genetics accurately demonstrate when natural selection will and will not effect change on a population. Shermer hypothesizes that if hominid fossils were found in the same geological strata as trilobites, it would be evidence against natural selection.^[1]

"Survival of the fittest" and morality

Many critics of evolution argue that "survival of the fittest" is a justification for violence and cruelty by premising human "rights" on the perceived quality of an individual by an arbitrary measure of "fitness". Evolution proponents often consider this to be an example of the naturalistic fallacy (or more specifically the is-ought problem), which states that prescriptive, moral statements cannot be derived from purely descriptive premises. On this view, while some have tried to use evolution as a justification for pseudoscientific ideas such as some forms of well known eugenics, these ideas are not actually supported by evolutionary theory.
This is also an example of the appeal to consequences fallacy--even if it were true that the concept of survival of the fittest is a justification for violence, this has no effect on the truth of the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Kropotkin and "survival of the fittest"

The famous anarchist philosopher and scientist Peter Kropotkin viewed the theory of survival of the fittest as supporting co-operation rather than competition. In his book '' he set out his analysis leading to the conclusion that the fittest was not necessarily the best at competing individually, but often the community made up of those best at working together. He concluded that "In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavourable to the species. The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress."
Applying this concept to human society, he presented mutual aid as one of the dominant factors of evolution, the other being self assertion, and concluded that "In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle – has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race."

References

1. Shermer, Michael; ''Why People Believe Weird Things''; 1997; Pages 143-144

External links

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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

History of the phrase

Is "survival of the fittest" a tautology?

"Survival of the fittest" and morality

Kropotkin and "survival of the fittest"

References

See also

External links

Origins of the phrase

Tautology links

Morality link

Kropotkin: Mutual Aid

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