An article I just read raised an interesting point about the theory of evolution that I never thought of before. I thought I’d bounce it off you folks, since the place where I read it isn’t the type of publication that’s very evolution-friendly:
Evolution is based on survival of the fittest.
So, if the fittest creature fails to survive, that would disprove evolution.
But we define “fitness” based on survival.
Definitely seems circular to me. Can any of you evolution folks set me straight on why you’d think it’s not circular?
I’m not going to go into the somewhat inaccurate idea that evolution is “based on” the survival of the fittest, I’m just going to point out that if “the fittest creature fails to survive”, that creature was not the fittest creature in the first place. The survivor is the fittest creature, by definition.
“What if the fittest creature did not survive”, you ask.
If it did not survive, it is not the fittest creature anymore.
It is impossible for the fittest creature to not survive. The fact that a creature survives means it is the fittest for that particular environment.
Take these moths for instance. This is real but I forget the name of the moths. Before, the fittest moths were light colored. They survived better than the darker moths that were born every now n then. The Black moths that were born stood out against the light colored trees and were eaten rather quickly so not many of them got to reproduce and the percentage of black moths was very very low. When industries were built in the area, they produced a black smoke that turned all the trees very dark. Now the light colored moths stood out. So now there is a higher percentage of black moths. When I say higher, I mean there are like 1000 black moths to every white one.
The white moths used to be the fittest for their environment so they survived. When the environment changed, they were no longer the fittest.
This is ridiculous. “Survival of the fittest” is a popular catchphrase. The engine of evolution is the tremendous potential for variation within a species. AS species respond to differing pressures, they will develop differing characteristcs, especially when Geographically isolated. This has been proven time and time again. Look at the finches of Galapagos, or the Tenrecs of Madagascar. What the hell is so circular about that?
The theory of evolution is not based upon the survival of the fittest. Survival of the fittest is a result of selection pressures on a varied population. “Evolution” is also the result of selection pressures on a population with heritable variation.
Therefore, “Survival of the Fittest” is, at best, a definition of Darwinian evolution, and a definition MUST refer back to that which it defines.
Claiming a definition is tautological shows ignorance of both definitions and tautologies.
Wouldn’t it be more correct to say the existence of those “fittest” forms is simply another proof of the theory?
To put it another way, if natural selection was not a factor, wouldn’t you expect to see species survive or perish arbitrarily? What would prevent a horribly non-adaptive mutation from propagation?
“Survival of the fittest” refers to the passing on of genetic material, I think.
Those that are “fittest” are those that have the most offspring (assuming that an animal better-suited to make many babies WOULD make many babies). Those that have more offspring than any other animal has greatly increased the likelihood of having ones genes passed onto a large number of second-generation kids, thus ensuring more third-generation genes, etc. etc.
“Survival of the fittest” doesn’t refer to the extremist catchphrase “only the strong survive”, but rather to who gets the most sex, basically.
You see, evolution is a pattern of improvement of species through the survival of the fittest. From a scientific standpoint, that is meaningless. “Pattern” is a subjective term. So are “improvement” and “fittest”. You can even argue that “species” is meaningless. Only the term “survival” carries any objective weight.
What do I mean? Well, try this little riddle:
Which object doesn’t belong - an orange, a grapefruit, a banana, or the sun?
Correct answer: An orange. It isn’t yellow.
Alternate correct answer: A banana. It isn’t round.
You see? Any classification is objective. A dog isn’t a fish because we say it isn’t, not because of any outside rule. Ths whole universe is just a random swirling of subatomic particles; any other deinition is just rhetoric.
That’s why there’s no such thing as evolution. Darwin saw a procession of events and decided that they fell into a pattern. But in truth, there is no pattern; no law of evolution; no driving force. One thing just follows another, and evolution is just a description.
Unless you want to start talking about God. In which case, ignore everything I just wrote.
Definitions are tautological because definitions consist of terms that themselves have definitions that have terms that have definitions that have terms that have definitions that have terms… Every definition eventually circles back to the term it defines.
That’s why definitions are stated even before the axioms.
I was going to say something about Alessan’s circular logic until I remembered what the thread title was…
By your definition, Alessan, everything is subjective. Okay, I can buy that. However, that subjection is parametered within reasonable bounds.
Is a monkey more advanced than a bird? No one can say, really, they’re two completely different animals. However, is a monkey more advanced that an amoeba? I think the vast majority of people would say yes. Why? Because the monkey has a much more developed body system. THAT’S evolution (on a really LARGE scale).
Anyway, hiding behind the barricade of “it’s all subjective!” doesn’t prove that evolution does or does not exist. It only shows that there’s an infinite number of different viewpoints on any situation.
Actually, evolution says exactly nothing about “advanced species” or “genetic progress”. Evolution has no goal. It is a blind process. Evolution does not develop “more advanced” species. It develops species more adapted to their environment. This might engender specialization; it might also result in generalization. Man is not more advanced, evolutionarily, than an amoeba. More complex, yes. “Advanced” is a concept that requires a goal. Evolution has none.
As has been stated, the OP is a strawman arguement. Evolution is not based on survival of the fittest. That’s just a catch-phrase aspect of evolution.
I also agree with S.M…evolution does not necessitate improvement, only change. A biological characteristic that is beneficial today may not be tomorrow. A characteristic that works in one environment may not in another.
Wow! This got convoluted fast. I may be too late with this answer, but I think one problem is with the equation Evolution=survival of the fittest. This isn’t true; evolution is the changes that occur in hereditary groupings of organisms over time. Survival of the fittest is one mechanism influencing this change.
As for the tautology, it would exist if one defined fitness as “able to survive”. In that case, I would agree that “survival of the fittest” would indeed be a meaningless tautological phrase. But “fitness” isn’t used that way in evolution. It is used to refer to some much more specific adaptation to some particular environmental pressure, and it is used in a comparative way between organisms (or populations - whatever your relevant evolutionary “unit” is). For example, one cheetah is described as more fit than another because it can run faster (not because it survives more) and thus catches more prey. The observation is then made that the more “fit” animals have higher survival rates. This is not a tautology, but people often get sloppy with their speech and use “fitness” to refer to the sum of all traits we could identify, like speed in this example, that allow an organism to fulfill the functions of life. Obviously, traits that comprise “fitness” are highly context-dependent, but this generalization yields a more abstract notion of fitness that is so tightly correlated with survivability that people end up using them interchangeably. But fitness is not defined as a synonym with survivability - at least when it is used in the term “survival of the fittest” (a term which, by the way, I have never heard a biologist use when speaking to another biologist).
There is a pop-culture use of “survival of the fittest” where fitness is taken in some general, absolute way that is context-independent and poorly defined. This fluffy use can be hijacked and equated with survival in such a way as to create a tautology, but it has nothing to do with real evolutionary theory.
You know that this thread is nothing but desperate spin-doctoring by the Evilutionist elite. It is clear that genetic, morphological, and paleontological evidence means nothing compared to semantics.
Other posters have already covered how this is a definition, and therefore naturally tautological. As an expansion on this point, suppose we know that the two legs of a right triangle have lenghts a and b. Further suppose that I provide a proof that the length of the hypotenus is sqrt(a^2+b^2). Now, by proving this, I am showing that the conclusion is implicitly stated by the premise. In other words, I assumed the conclusion in my premise! If this is circular reasoning, then every single proof in mathematics is circular reasoning.
But the claim that natural selection is circular reasoning has an even more fundamental flaw. For something to be a circular argument, it must:
a) be circular (something that has already been thoroughly discussed).
b) be an argument. Now, is “natural selection” an argument? No, it’s just a phrase. “Natural selection” is no more a circular argument that “three grapes and an apple” is. If you can provide an argument involving natural selection that seems circular to you, then we can discuss that.
Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I drop a watermelon off a building. It smashes into several pieces. I drop a TV off a building. It smashes into several pieces. I drop a dog off a building. Its bones smash into several pieces, and it dies. I say there’s a pattern there, and I induce that if you jump off the building, you will die. You may disagree with me, and say that there is no pattern. You are free to believe that, and even jump off the building if you want. You are free to consider your impending death to not be a part of any larger pattern. But doing so will not make you any less dead. Using your logic, chairs don’t exist, because the idea that all of the objects which we call “chairs” belong in one class is subjective.
Here’s the deal: Evolution is true. Survival of the fittest is not.
This very topic worried Darwin a lot and he devoted several chapters to it.
The problem is he was raised by the church and lived in a society that believed things were constantly improving, not just changing. Modern scientists aren’t worried about the “fittest”, but the interconnections that demonstrate all animals are related.
