This from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on Herbert Spencer:
“It should be noted that Spencer published his idea of the evolution of biological species before the views of Charles Darwin and the British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace were known, but Spencer at that time thought that evolution was caused by the inheritance of acquired characteristics,
whereas Darwin and Wallace attributed it to natural selection. Spencer later accepted the theory that natural selection was one of
the causes of biological evolution, and he himself coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” (Principles of Biology [1864], vol. 1, p.444).”
As you know, Darwin’s “On the Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection” was published in 1859, 5 years before The term “Survival of the fittest” was ever used.
However (and this is part of what frustrates me) when you look up “Biology” in Britannica, the VERY SAME SOURCE attributes the phrase back to him:
“In his theory of natural selection, which is discussed in greater detail later, Charles Darwin suggested that “survival of the fittest” was the basis for organic evolution (the modification of living things with time).”
Hmm… Anyone can see that there is a problem here.
The fact is, most people couldn’t care less because it’s all just a bunch of words. Even academicians get really sloppy about it. I found that most of the anthroplogy texts that I have that deal with human evolution choose simply to omit the offending phrase, while a few begrudgingly say things like “In popular writing, natural selection is often equated with “Survival of the fittest” in which the weak and the unfit are eliminated from the population by disease, predation or starvation. Obviously, the survival of the fittest has some bearing on natural selection; one need hardly point out that the dead do not reproduce. But there may be many cases in which individuals survive but do not reproduce…” William Haviland “Anthropology” seventh Edition (1994, page 66) [this is one of the most widely used university textbooks in anthropology, or at least was up until I quit teaching about three years ago- note the seven previous editions].
So knowing that "Survival of the fittest is Spencer’s term, not Darwin’s, knowing that literally it doesn’t really convey the central idea of natural selection to begin with, and recognizing that the ideas that Spencer was actually promoting were the foundations of the eugenics movement and influenced people like Hitler, I would say that this is a term that most people who are trying to teach others about evolution should either avoid (to me, a copout) or clear up from the outset.
But this is really a losing battle. Everyone seems committed to perpetuating this misunderstanding. People wonder why I’m so against it, but I just can’t figure out why everyone else is so invested in using a misleading, wrongly attributed shibboleth. This is the sort of thing Cecil is supposed to be good at debunking or elucidating.
And for the record, Africans did not “evolve” dark skin. Since the human species originated from Africa, it is most likely that our original color was darkly pigmented. Fair-skinned people have light skin because they have a gene that inhibits the otherwise natural production of melanin. White folks still produce it, but our skins only darken temporarily after exposure to the sun.
"The little “L shaped thing” is called an atlatl, and Jois is quite right that given the variety of hunting techniques, poor vision wouldn’t always be a big problem. Food sharing is a universal human phenomena, and those who can’t hunt usually get fed by their relatives, and usually find other ways to contribute to the family/group (by being a shaman, for example). Also, the whole “Hunter-gatherer” aspect of our past (and our present, for that matter) is terribly misunderstood. You can, for example, consider the Kalihari Bushmen, the Ituri “pygmies,” the Innuit, Pacific Northwestern tribes such as the Kwaikiutl, and Homo erectus. All were "hunter-gatherers, and all lived in different envirnment, hunting different types of game using different types of technology and having different marriage systems, kinship structures, and different relationships with other groups living in proximity. Hunting elephants on a plain with a group of people is a vastly different enterprise from hunting monkeys by yourself with a blowgun, trapping fish, or running game over a cliff. All of these are part of the “foraging spectrum.”