Is Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’ theory going Extinct?
Posted by MindScape at 10:33, 10 Feb 2010READERS in search of literature about Darwin or Darwinism will have no
trouble finding it. Recent milestone anniversaries of Darwin’s birth
and of the publication of On the Origin of Species have prompted a
plethora of material, so authors thinking of adding another volume had
better have a good excuse for it. We have written another book about
Darwinism, and we urge you to take it to heart. Our excuse is in the
title: What Darwin Got Wrong.
By Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, from the NewScientist
Much of the vast neo-Darwinian literature is distressingly uncritical.
The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin’s account
of evolution is hardly considered. Such dissent as there is often
relies on theistic premises which Darwinists rightly say have no place
in the evaluation of scientific theories. So onlookers are left with
the impression that there is little or nothing about Darwin’s theory to
which a scientific naturalist could reasonably object. The
methodological scepticism that characterises most areas of scientific
discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic.
To read full article go to http://www.brainwaving.com/2010/02/08/is...
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Comments
30 April 2004
6 hours 34 min
With all due respect, wouldn't the proper place to link to be the original source of the article?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20... ?
Kind regards,
Greg
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You monkeys only think you're running things
@DailyGrail
10 February 2010
24 weeks 5 days
Poor Darwin. You know, if one were to read his personal writings they'd see that he was not the type to want to be such a firebrand. All this controversy over his theories would have dismayed him thoroughly.
In any event, Darwin's theory of natural selection has evolved for quite a number of years. As such, the Evolutionary Theory of today is not what it was in 1900, 1920, or even 1990.
"Survival of the Fittest" has always been a loose approximation of the idea anyway. The central idea is that those species which go on to breed will pass those favorable traits on to the next generation, and so on...
Therefore one should accept that "fittest" doesn't mean (and, in the realms of true evolutionary biology, has not ever meant) bigger, faster, stronger, and more intelligent. It simply means best suited to a given set of environmental conditions.
Environments are not static systems, therefore neither are the living things that inhabit them.
22 November 2004
2 weeks 15 hours
Back when I was attending college (graduated too :), the teaching as that evolution operated on the individual.
Therefore the gene pool providing the fittest individuals would succeed, over the gene pool providing less fit individuals.
This is probably not right. What evolves isn't precisely defined any more.
Take ants and ant colonies for example. Does selection operate on better ants? Or on better and colonies? Or on better ant DNA?
What about bacteria, which are quite promiscuous when it comes to sharing DNA with other bacteria. What is a species in this case?
This can be taken further to entire ecosystems. An ecosystem will change over time, for internal reasons. These changes can make the ecosystem more successful or less successful in dealing with its environment.
What remains is the basic idea that all these things happen without a plan.
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We are the cat.
21 February 2009
1 day 6 hours
Good post. I agree.
I'd only add that you are right in many peoples misunderstanding of 'fittest'. I think many philosophical problems occur because of this.. Anyway. Fittest needn't mean a great deal really, not in the context that our minds or language sometimes force us to conceive. We can be so engrossed on our body scale and about consciousness/mind that we miss the very broad possibilities of 'fitness'.
All it really means is that genetic replication to the next generation occurs. It doesnt have to be best suited to the environment. It's quite possible for an individual to outcompete a better competitor through luck. Luck should be averaged out over many numbers of course, but it doesnt mean that at the level of the individual and 'their genes' it doesnt happen.
Time and large numbers of individuals (plus evolution acting slowly on the population/not the individual) make us fit our ecological niches, though as ever we should resist simplifying with such a complex system.
Either way though, fitness is such a broad concept with so many variables that it's real defining character is sucessful replication, which can happen for many reasons (including non-consensual).
This freedom is a large part of it's power. It also makes me a bit cross that people, who would otherwise be optimistic and emotional, concentrate on the negative when 'fitness' is being considered. Socialisation and binding forces such as love are just as important a part of fitness as muscle power. In fact with our species our poor physical adaptation is probably one of the driving forces behind the fitness of our brain building genes.