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"This dramatic shift from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the smartest..." It really bugs me when people use terms like this. Survival of the s
by Qz 17y ago
"This dramatic shift from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the smartest..."
It really bugs me when people use terms like this. Survival of the smartest is survival of the fittest. Nothing has changed!
- scott_s 17y agoSelection pressures have changed, but, yes, it's still "fitness." It's just that the criteria of "fittest" in that situation has changed. I think people conflate "fittest" with "physically fit" which is not what the word means in "survival of the fittest."
- Qz 17y agoWhat's funny is that the phrase itself is something of a tautology -- fitness in that context is basically having whatever attributes contribute to survival, so the phrase ends up meaning "survival of that which survives best" or even simpler, "survival of the survivors". Survival is the only measurable quality of fitness. The other thing that can be confusing is that the timeframe of the statement is infinite. It's not saying "that which is still alive today is the fittest", but rather "that which is still alive infinitely far into the future is the fittest".
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- tokenadult 17y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest "Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase 'survival of the fittest' as a synonym for 'natural selection' in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869.[2][3] Darwin meant it is a metaphor for 'better adapted for immediate, local environment', not the common inference of 'in the best physical shape' [4]. Hence, it is not a scientific description,[5] and is both incomplete and misleading."
- sliverstorm 17y agoMore importantly, people consider people to be apart from nature. Everyone would agree that dogs have undergone artificial selection- selection controlled by humans. But from a grand-scheme-of-things point of view, humans are just another force of nature, thus it's really just the same old natural selection, survival of the fittest. We just like to think we are something other than nature.
- Dove 17y agoIndeed. The selection dogs have undergone is not, in the final analysis, artificial. The many breeds of dogs are simply seeking out ecological niches in a complex fitness landscape which humans partly define. I'm not even sure the selection process is all that different from nature's. Is an odd feature in a pet striking a fancy all that different from an odd feature in a mate doing so?
- stan_rogers 17y agoIndeed it is -- fixing traits (creating homozygosity) in standard breeds involves intense inbreeding, which also makes normally-recessive and harmful traits much more likely to be expressed than in any natural pattern (inbreeding is normally abhorred by nature). Purebred dogs are far more likely to fall victim to cancers, hip displasia and other ailments that would naturally be selected against.