Healym, I don’t think WhiteNight was asserting that strength is all it takes to survive. Read his post again. He lists physical strength as one factor, but also mentions the example of being able to smell truffles.
I think where he says “strongest” he meant “fittest”, which boils down to the tautology.
Or you can say the one better adapted to his environment will live longer and have a better chance of producing more offspring because of living longer, better attracting mates, etc. That’s survival of the fittest - the ones most fit to their environment (used broadly) survive. Of course the important part of evolution is passing that survival trait to offspring.
Exactly. I used the example of physical strength, but also the one of smelling truffles, something that as I wrote seemed about the farthest from a Nazi ubermensch ideal trait.
I also meant to give the impression that the list of valuable traits was longer than that, a ‘perfect being’ (5th element reference) is more than a muscular sniffer of truffles.
Well, perhaps I wasn’t terribly clear, I was dead tired that night. I think though that the confusion lays in a possible stretching of the word ‘strongest’ to mean ‘most capable’.
I don’t find this to be incorrect, though it may be a bit unclear. To back this up, here are some meanings from www.m-w.com for the word ‘strong’ which support my point.
3 : having great resources (as of wealth or talent)
5 a : striking or superior of its kind […]
7 : not mild or weak
11 a : not easily injured or disturbed
12 : well established […]
You may not agree with all of these, but I think I’ve made a case for the word ‘strong’ being applicable to general fitness. For example, I have heard the phrase “I have a strong cold”, which doesn’t mean that the virus has mighty thews, but that the virus has a strong impact on the victim.
Anyways, the intent was not to imply physical strength was the most important trait, or even in many organisms, a desirable one at all.
The very next sentence explained my use of the word, or rather, my intent. Read in it “… more capable of …”, that’s the important phrase.
Survival is all there is, in the context of the saying “Survival of the fittest.”
But yes, in the larger view, that of genetic material, not of survival of the individual orgamisn, survival is just what happens while the organism tries to pass on its genes.
That is why I suggested that “Survival of the fittest” was perfectly correct, but not specific enough to be completely accurate.
Exactly. I meant fittest, but in the interests on not using the same word over and over without explaining what I thought it meant, I gave an example that in retrospect was easy to misunderstand.
It boils down though, to “Survival of the Fittest” being a tautology, as you say. Like saying “The prospering of the prosperous”.
I can see how this phrase might be misunderstood by someone, but that’s a fault of the person, not the phrase.
To me, condemning the phrase because of the mistaken connotations is a mistake. Short people are short, not vertically challenged, even if that word is offensive to some. The ‘fittest’ survive (on average), even if that phrase is offensive to some who were opressed by people who used that phrase as justification.
To better educate, people might be served by showing where such a simple statement breaks down, not simply saying that it is false, which it most obviously is not.
If you find fault with my reasoning, tell me what the problem is, don’t hide behind “I could tell you, but I’ll let you figure it out.” That phrase just means you don’t know and wish to present the illusion that you do.
I get the feeling that you’re hinting your vast genius is wasted, because we fools simply can’t grasp your mighty logic. I would suggest another alternative…
So far, we have two pages worth of explaining here. All the answers are here already, look at page one.
It is as if you are saying, “Gee, I want to talk biology but I want to use the vocabulary of physics.”
Why not use the vocabulary of biology? Genetics? If you don’t know it, learn it. It is the century we are moving into - that’s where medicine, technology, and food production are headed.
And where, millions, yes, millions of your tax dollars are being spent right this minute. I just saw this year’s grant $$$ for biological research, as a tax payer you should be able to go into Washington University and check to see how clean the floors and windows are and what’s to eat in the refrig. so much grant $$$ is going into that place. They are building a two storey underground (yes, underground) facility to store all the mice they have used in biological/genetic testing. Seen pictures of mice with short tails? They cut off a snip of the mice’s tail to check its DNA and run new tests. Some of the mice cost $10,000 to build - or more although the price is supposed to be coming down. Each test - the tail gets shorter!
Talk biology and genetics, it is interesting as the dickens.
Are you driving with your eyes open or are you using The Force? - A. Foley
Jois, just because something isn’t “in the language of biology” doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
And I have yet to see you explain why survival of the fittest is wrong. I admit some people could be confused by it, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
So until you can actually show me how I’m wrong, I’ll assume you’re full of hot air. Especially after a content-free post like that last one, I mean really, who cares about a two story underground facility with short tailed mice? It’s not at all relevant to the discussion at hand.
I have read this entire thread, and I haven’t found any evidence of why the tautology “Survival of the Fittest” is wrong. It’s probably because your definition of evidence is telling people that they’re wrong without actually posting any proof or discussion.
I saw the earlier references to myopia (BigDaddy and egkelly, I believe) and skimmed the rest just so I could get this in. I hope to be forgiven for the lack of a cite and the fact that I’m pulling it from memory (Warning! Warning!) - and for repetition if someone posted it or something better already.
Allegedly, Canadian researchers found the following that among the Canadian Inuit/Eskimo population, which was largely “resettled” in the 50s and 60s, (said resettlement being to guvmint-built housing where they could be “properly educated” and could moreover be found for purposes of disbursing their guvmint assistance,) rates of myopia were found to be:
Grandparent generation, which reached majority before the government began interfering, ~0%.
Parent generation, which was born into and partially raised in the “old culture” before being, er, uplifted: ~20%.
Child generation, born into and raised under the present circumstances (i.e. book learning, much larger than previous percentage of time spent indoors): ~50%.
If this is true, I would submit that it is unlikely that this rapid rise of myopia was due to selection no longer removing the myopic from the gene pool, or to mutation. I submit that it was much more likely due to cultural factors, namely that eyes evolved for living in the wide wilds were now being adapted to long periods of close focus, with result that in many cases physical changes (but not genetic changes) took place.
Saltire: I agree with you. It’s accurate, in so far as it goes. The innacuracies aren’t a fault of the statement as much as what people want to hear it say.
I see the same things with “SotF” as with any sort of standardized testing. People believe that people with certain traits are most fit to succeed, thus they test for these traits, getting people whose only skill is at passing those standardized tests. This and a few other small errors and you end up with Nazi eugenics, not as a fault of the statement, but the willingness of people to apply a simple, reasonable sounding statement, outside of its proper context.
My point was that it’s incorrect to just say the statement is correct, because it’s self evident. What needs to be done is show when the statement doesn’t apply, thus people will hopefully realize that not everything important can be summed up as a sound-bite. Cecil never shies from the difficult truth, even if it would correct the immediate misunderstanding to make up something easy. If you (generic) must say that “SotF” is incorrect, please say it’s not complete, and shouldn’t be used in a sweeping sense till the limits of its applicability are known, not simple that it’s wrong.
Cecil used it in passing, and as refering to a vague idea other people had. Seems accurate enough to me, in the context.
What I meant is that if someone asked Cecil for the dope with “SotF” he wouldn’t just say “It’s wrong”, he’s say “It’s correct, but only in context, which is … so don’t just throw it around without understanding.”
Or rather, that’s what I’d assume he’d do. It may be easier just to tell someone not to use it, but I think he’d explain why, to stamp out the stupidity, not just tell people it’s out and out wrong when it’s not.
Actually the human race is Devolving. Over the past two centuries or so we have tended to find ways to save the lives of those who would otherwise have died naturally.
Those with mental and/or physical diseases, disorders, and just plain genetic bad luck, have all survived long enough to breed…when before they would not have. Not PC, but then truth and reality never are. You can be Politically Correct, or Actually Correct. The two are mutually exclusive.
Evidence of this? Easy. Go for a drive and tell me people aren’t getting dumber, slower, weaker and more gullible every day!
Look at the TV…Pokemon and Jerry Springer. Nuff said!
Stonecutter, there’s no such thing as devolving. It’s not like the evolutionary changes that made us what we are can simply be removed, like clicking ‘undo’ in a document.
Even if it was accepted that the race is slipping farther from an excepted ideal, it wouldn’t be devolving.
As someone mentioned earlier, bigger and stronger aren’t always desired traits. Take something like an alligator. Put a population somewhere pike (large fast fish, like a small freshwater shark) would thrive. The alligators’ traits would be overkill, and if they did manage to survive, it’d be the smaller faster ones which thrived. Eventually, if left alone, this population would tend to be smaller, faster, and probably faster swimmers.
That wouldn’t be devolving, that’d be evolving to suit the conditions. Why should the alligators waste calories and time building a 20’ long body, huge teeth, and muscles capable of ripping a cow apart when they’d never eat anything bigger or more fearsome than a trout? They’d be much better served by different traits. Even if those traits appear to set them back, when compared to a standard alligator population.
Similarly, if we accept that humans are getting dumber, etc, then it’s because the traits they are losing are ones that didn’t help previous generations.
I personally don’t really believe that the race is worse off genetically, except perhaps for some things like hemophilia. I attribute any perceived lack in intelligence to nurture, not nature. Bad schooling and few chances can make people happy to sit in front of the tube and rot what brain remains. That’s a much bigger and more obvious change than you’d see genetically, in so short a time, even if dumb people were being selected for.
But anyways, devolving is something that can’t happen. It’s not anything to do with PC, it just can’t happen. Harmful changes are called “harmful mutations”. If they breed true and that line prospers, then obviously that genetic line isn’t all that bad off, even if they appear to have a big flaw. Small harmful changes like hemophilia will wipe out a genetic line, unless outside influences intervene. In feast years, even three-legged wolves prosper. Similarly, minor ailments that don’t actually greatly impact survivability can spread. It’s not really a devolution though.
It’s no different from blind, albino cave fish and insects and arthropods. Albinism is a disadvantage in the outside world because of the damagaing effects of sunlight. In darkness, color doesn’t matter and neither does sight. An eyeless cave fish has an advantage over fish with eyes because its body no longer has to devote scarce food and oxygen to maintaining unnecessary organs.
Whether a physical trait is a hindrance or an advantage depends entirely upon which pond you swim in.
Hmm. I see your point. Very well then…we are undergoing a form of “Sideways evolution”. Perhaps the move towards greater intelligence
was not a great gift after all…and as civilization grew more advanced, fewer people actually needed to know how things worked. Fewer needed to use the intelligence we had previously evolved. So, as the cave fish lost its eyes in the dark, so we humans are, on average, losing our intelligence…simply because in so many cases, there’s no need for it anymore.
So much for the Lunar factories and the Jovian System tourist industry I’d been expecting this century…