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The framing in the title seems somewhat disingenuous to me. This is one article in that journal, it's not an editorial and as far as I can tell there is nothing

The framing in the title seems somewhat disingenuous to me. This is one article in that journal, it's not an editorial and as far as I can tell there is nothing to indicate that this article represents the opinions of the journal or its editors. The more interesting criticism of the paper are only paraphrased without quotes, I'm not sure I understand the arguments here without reading the original paper in full. There is one part I think that is interesting from an entirely different point of view, and that is that "fitness" is probably not the best term for this concept in evolution. I don't think I've ever heard evolution explained without the caveat that "fitness" in evolution doesn't mean what we understand commonly as fitness. It's more about the survival of the best adapted one, and not the strongest one. There are some terms in biology that are far from ideal, but they stick because we used them for a long time. Another example is the "central dogma of molecular biology", Crick later admitted that he misunderstood what dogma actually means when he coined that term. The term is simply wrong in this case, but it still remains.

ominous 4y ago
> Another example is the "central dogma of molecular biology", Crick later admitted that he misunderstood what dogma actually means when he coined that term. The term is simply wrong in this case, but it still remains. It remains because it is understood, making it not wrong. It is far from ideal, language wise, if we were to take language as more important than how language is used. > It's more about the survival of the best adapted one, and not the strongest one. The same applies to the usage of "fitness", that you chose to misunderstand. Do you also misread "islamophobia"? Are all usages of "literally" literal?
tremon 4y ago
"fitness" in evolution doesn't mean what we understand commonly as fitness. It's more about the survival of the best adapted one, and not the strongest one. It's almost as if the original author meant to say "fit for purpose".
- PicassoCTs 4y ago
  Thats also wrong, its the good enough for a environment. And environments are many and ever changing. A fish sweating glycol into his body, is deadly sick on this planet (well maybe except the poles), but well adapted aka fit on alot of other planets. Finally, environments swing, for example by increasing and decreasing mouse populations, which may even within a species allow for epigenetic adaptions (good times reproduce, bad times sit on a pole and do energy efficient nothing), which then explains initial diversity and "neuro divergence" in animal popultions. Usual trigger is economic stresses. Now lets all pray to the great sinus curve of the environment in the sky.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    "good enough for the environment" is exactly what "fit" means. "fitness" means "how well it fits [into the environment]". It's perfectly anti-ablelist right from the start -- a tenet of anti-ableism is that "disability" is a problem in the environment, not in the individual. "fitness = strength" is a corruption of the original meaning.
Beltalowda 4y ago
The common translation of "survival of the fittest" in Dutch is "survival of the strongest", which is even worse! I do think "fitness" is often misunderstood, as is evolution in general. Even though the basic principles aren't that hard it's kind of tricky to really "get" natural selection. It's like trying to "get" just how huge astronomical distances are, or how a river could have formed the grand canyon: it's so far outside of our regular every-day experiences it takes some effort. I'm not sure if s/fittest/best adapted/ (or something along these lines) would help, but it might? Of course, good general education about evolution would help even more, but yeah, that's been controversial for 150 years now...
naasking 4y ago
> and as far as I can tell there is nothing to indicate that this article represents the opinions of the journal or its editors. From the article or it's comments, the journal's editors actually solicited this submission, it wasn't submitted and then approved after passing a standard review.

ominous 4y ago

> Another example is the "central dogma of molecular biology", Crick later admitted that he misunderstood what dogma actually means when he coined that term. The term is simply wrong in this case, but it still remains. It remains because it is understood, making it not wrong. It is far from ideal, language wise, if we were to take language as more important than how language is used. > It's more about the survival of the best adapted one, and not the strongest one. The same applies to the usage of "fitness", that you chose to misunderstand. Do you also misread "islamophobia"? Are all usages of "literally" literal?

tremon 4y ago

"fitness" in evolution doesn't mean what we understand commonly as fitness. It's more about the survival of the best adapted one, and not the strongest one. It's almost as if the original author meant to say "fit for purpose".

PicassoCTs 4y ago
Thats also wrong, its the good enough for a environment. And environments are many and ever changing. A fish sweating glycol into his body, is deadly sick on this planet (well maybe except the poles), but well adapted aka fit on alot of other planets. Finally, environments swing, for example by increasing and decreasing mouse populations, which may even within a species allow for epigenetic adaptions (good times reproduce, bad times sit on a pole and do energy efficient nothing), which then explains initial diversity and "neuro divergence" in animal popultions. Usual trigger is economic stresses. Now lets all pray to the great sinus curve of the environment in the sky.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  "good enough for the environment" is exactly what "fit" means. "fitness" means "how well it fits [into the environment]". It's perfectly anti-ablelist right from the start -- a tenet of anti-ableism is that "disability" is a problem in the environment, not in the individual. "fitness = strength" is a corruption of the original meaning.

Beltalowda 4y ago

The common translation of "survival of the fittest" in Dutch is "survival of the strongest", which is even worse! I do think "fitness" is often misunderstood, as is evolution in general. Even though the basic principles aren't that hard it's kind of tricky to really "get" natural selection. It's like trying to "get" just how huge astronomical distances are, or how a river could have formed the grand canyon: it's so far outside of our regular every-day experiences it takes some effort. I'm not sure if s/fittest/best adapted/ (or something along these lines) would help, but it might? Of course, good general education about evolution would help even more, but yeah, that's been controversial for 150 years now...

naasking 4y ago

> and as far as I can tell there is nothing to indicate that this article represents the opinions of the journal or its editors. From the article or it's comments, the journal's editors actually solicited this submission, it wasn't submitted and then approved after passing a standard review.