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,

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...