"Survival of the Fittest": Its meaning and its implications for our life
We read in Wikipedia: "Survival of the fittest is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of [i]natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms, the phrase is best understood as 'Survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations.'"[/i]
Bad introduction. Because what it follows immediately after contradicts itself about the origin of the phrase in question, by saying "Herbert Spencer first used the phrase, after reading Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species', in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones: 'This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
Anyway, we can find elsewhere that Spencer talked about this concept to Darwin and convinced him to use it instead of "natural selection". But this is trivial to me.
Now, I wouldn't talk about such "small gaps" in the documentation --literature and historical documentation are plenty of them!-- if the phrase Survival of the fittest were not one among the most known and used, mainly in the scientific world but also in philosophy, which interests me here and which this topic is about, and about which I want to discuss mainly the following questions:
1) Is this concept or principle a "realistic" one, i.e. does it correspond and fit our common reality about life?
2) Do most people, esp. in the academic world, consider and apply this concept or principle it in its original form, i.e. as it came to be known from Darwin's works?
3) What consequences or implications can this this phrase have for our lives if we embrace it as a principle and let it define our actions? More specifically, what are the implications of this principle for life --not only human, but every life-- from an ethical viewpoint?
I'm of course interested more in the last one.
***
So, I will start by expressing my opinion on each of the above questions by keeping it as short as possible:
1) This concept and principle is not "realistic" for me. It fails to describe a lot --if not most-- aspects of life.
2) I believe that people in general are confused about it and that the views about it differ in the academic world.
3) It can have bad implications --from an ethical viewpoint, of course-- in many ways. Maybe the most important of them is that it supports racism. We all know what influence it had on Nazis and the genocide, which took place in the name of keeping the Aryan race pure.
I give the floor to you.
Bad introduction. Because what it follows immediately after contradicts itself about the origin of the phrase in question, by saying "Herbert Spencer first used the phrase, after reading Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species', in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones: 'This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."
Anyway, we can find elsewhere that Spencer talked about this concept to Darwin and convinced him to use it instead of "natural selection". But this is trivial to me.
Now, I wouldn't talk about such "small gaps" in the documentation --literature and historical documentation are plenty of them!-- if the phrase Survival of the fittest were not one among the most known and used, mainly in the scientific world but also in philosophy, which interests me here and which this topic is about, and about which I want to discuss mainly the following questions:
1) Is this concept or principle a "realistic" one, i.e. does it correspond and fit our common reality about life?
2) Do most people, esp. in the academic world, consider and apply this concept or principle it in its original form, i.e. as it came to be known from Darwin's works?
3) What consequences or implications can this this phrase have for our lives if we embrace it as a principle and let it define our actions? More specifically, what are the implications of this principle for life --not only human, but every life-- from an ethical viewpoint?
I'm of course interested more in the last one.
***
So, I will start by expressing my opinion on each of the above questions by keeping it as short as possible:
1) This concept and principle is not "realistic" for me. It fails to describe a lot --if not most-- aspects of life.
2) I believe that people in general are confused about it and that the views about it differ in the academic world.
3) It can have bad implications --from an ethical viewpoint, of course-- in many ways. Maybe the most important of them is that it supports racism. We all know what influence it had on Nazis and the genocide, which took place in the name of keeping the Aryan race pure.
I give the floor to you.
Comments (76)
So, that said:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No it doesn't. We already know that adaptation due to mutation has been successful as shown in species and within the cultural context (i.e. humans). But also adaptation to changing environment has also been successful. Strategy is a very effective method of coping with the environment given what you have.
In nature, the genetic strains that replicate most successfully have the highest survival rate.
In human societies, both reproduction and survival capability are unnatural.
So, no, it can't be applied.
Your arguments are so interesting. I have always understood the theory of "survival of the fittest" on a military/conquering way. Some authors, for example, defended the power of Roman Empire among Europe because how they showed to be the "fittest". So, I guess it can be understood as a principle to just defend a cause in wars. Could be a theory which romantize warlike purposes?
As Alkis Piskas, pointed out, it could lead us in a chaotic context like the Genocide inside Nazi Germany.
Then, I must answer the following question:
Quoting Alkis Piskas
If it is real o no depends on the context. Probably inside a biological system or environment is useless but to promote destruction and chaos such theory does exist.
And then there is the question of survival. Which counts for more, proliferation or longevity? Over what span of generations.
Darwin was articulate, but he couldn't have foreseen what the future speakers of English, and particularly those with an agenda of their own, would make of his words.
Not so. It was coined by Herbert Spencer but Darwin approved it and included it in later editions of OoS - as OP says.
To add my two cents, though I now see some of this overlaps with some previous comments:
To paraphrase a former professor of mine as I can best recall, the phrasing can well be deemed tautological; consider that survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations can biologically well translate into survival of the form that survives in successive generations and, since evolutionary survival is always implicitly understood in terms of generations (rather than in terms of one individual organisms lifespan), the latter phrasing can just as well be reduced to survival of that form which survives.
That tidbit mentioned, to further opine, as to (1) it depends on how the phrase "survival of the fittest" gets interpreted. For instance, if fitness is philosophically understood in the more abstract terms of the attribute of being conformant to some given and one further infers that this conformity first and foremost addresses something akin to objective reality when it comes to life and its inherent subjectivity, then one can obtain the rather realistic view that those lifeforms which best conform to the requirements of objective realitys ever-changing parameters will be most likely to survive (i.e., will, as forms, be most likely found to continue occurring in latter generations). Though this understanding of fitness is different from the official understanding of fitness as, in short, reproductive success, the two understanding can very well converge to my mind. Hence, when thus interpreted, for one example, the present human species can be deemed of very low fitness since it is not fitting itself into, i.e. conforming with, the ecological requirements of the biosphere, but instead diverging from these requirements with global warming and its ever more devastating consequences as one primary outcome of this. Yes, a lot is opined here but, again, it's mentioned with intent to illustrate that the realism to survival of the fittest is contingent on how the expression is interpreted.
As to (2), how most interpret survival of the fittest is to my mind a simple mirror held up to the principle values which humanity at large currently entertains. We too often value authoritarian dominance over other, this being implicitly deemed synonymous to fitness by many if not most, as contrasted to living in harmony with other. In reality, non-human species that tend to not live in harmony with their surrounding species and environment also tend to not be very fit, apex predators included. If a predator species eats too much of its prey species, then the predator species will collapse and, if its collapse and absence of food is sufficient, it can go extinct. Maybe for obvious reasons, not many, if any, living examples of such species of apex predators (humans here excluded), but from what I recall ecological models illustrate this just mentioned tendency.
And in terms of (3), again imo, given the aforementioned perspectives, the phrasing is morally detrimental in so far as it reinforces the predominant view of fitness being equivalent to a kind of individualism wherein the individual person or cohort outcompetes all others in a zero-sum game. The phrasing further seeks to root this mindset into the objective reality of biology at large when, in fact, this mindset, generally speaking, directly contradicts what the natural world of life for the most part consists of. Competition stands out to us against a background of cooperation and harmony; we focus on the first and tend to neglect the second.
So, to sum my own perspective up, theres a lot more cooperation and harmony in nature than what we are typically interested in acknowledging, such that it is this very cooperation and harmony which leads to the fitness of the species and individuals from which the biosphere is constituted. But cooperation and harmony is most often opposite to what we commonly interpret via the motto of survival of the fittest.
Its a kind of revisionist or alternative view of evolutionary history - recommended to me by a friend although I havent read it yet.
Read it some time ago. Found it an enjoyable read, and remember it being well supported by a good amount of scientific research.
Quoting Wayfarer
May I ask what was the response of Darwin when Spencer talked to him about using the phrase. And if Darwin did agree to it, what did Darwin think of "survival of the fittest"? Because as others have already pointed out in this thread, the meaning, not just connotation of the phrase is one of competition and mercilessness. "I am not going to slow down so you could catch up. I'm going full force and if you're not able to catch up, oh well."
Quoting javi2541997
This is an example of how Darwin's natural selection had been misused. It really is about the species of animals.
I only read The Origin of Species, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, and his autobiography - this decades ago with no recollection of the editions I read, nor with much background knowledge of how he incorporated survival of the fittest into later editions due to, I believe it was, Wallaces influence. So I'm no academic on the matter. But I did find this news article which supports the impression that reading him made on me back when I read Darwin: he didn't endorse the notion of selfish individualism being a leading driver of evolution. Heres a noteworthy, though inadequately referenced, excerpt from the article:
In other contexts Darwin did emphasise the fundamental importance of co-operation and altruistic behaviour as being essential to human flourishing. I dont think he saw the SOF as a model for social development and co-operation which is however how it was adapted by Herbert Spencer and others through the ideas of eugenics. And it has to be said that the survival of the fittest lends itself to a way of seeing life that is convergent with capitalist social philosophy, as many have pointed out.
Its also interesting that Alfred Russel Wallace diverged from Darwin in respect of the descent of man. Even though he agreed completely with the theory of the evolution of the biological form of h. Sapiens, he claimed that natural selection alone could not account for such faculties as mathematics, art and other intellectual abilities. See his Darwinism Applied to Man, which is freely available on the Internet.
My view is simply that h. Sapiens is not fully determined by evolutionary theory. Even though evolution indubitably occurred in line with the empirical discoveries, at the point where h. Sapiens became able to reason and create culture and technology, we transcend the biological even if we are still in some fundamental sense biological creatures.
Thank you for your response.
Quoting L'éléphant
This is what I said at the beginning. It was Spencer's idea:
"Herbert Spencer (18201903) was an English philosopher who initiated a philosophy called Social Darwinism. He coined the term survival of the fittest seven years before Darwins publication of his theory of natural history," (https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-4/neoliberalism-more-recent-times/herbert-spencer-on-the-survival-of-the-fittest)
"Hearing of Spencer's idea, noted British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently conceived of evolution by natural selection, wrote to Darwin and urged him to adopt the phrase "survival of the fittest" in future editions of On the Origin of Species. Natural selection seemed to personify nature as "selecting" successful species, he contended. Using "survival of the fittest" would do away with that misconception." (https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/06/03/the_problem_with_survival_of_the_fittest_778335.html
Quoting L'éléphant
Right. Mutation is not "natural selection".
Thank you for your response, Javi.
Quoting javi2541997
Right. The concept fits to all conquerors. The will for and act of conquering comes from mental illness and is a form of criminality. One has just to read their lives and feats, as well as their behavior in general, to ascertain that.
Which leads me to say that "survival of the fittest", if used willfully as a principle and not as "natural selection", is a criminal and/or insane attitude. I guess Darwin consider the animal kingdom alone.
But humans differ from animals and, unfortunately in this case, they suffer from mental illnesses that are absent in animals.
A mental illness is an aberration, i.e. a deviation from (what considered as) normal or "natural" behaviour. Darwin was a biologist and not a psychologist, so he regarded humans as animals and he ignored this very important human factor.
Thank you for your response to the topic.
Quoting Vera Mont
Certainly.
Quoting Vera Mont
Right, we can attribute to it different meanings. However, there is a scientific and precise definition for it in the present context:
Also called Dar·win·i·an fit·ness [dahr-win-ee-uhn]. Biology.
[i]"1. The genetic contribution of an individual to the next generation's gene pool relative to the average for the population, usually measured by the number of offspring or close kin that survive to reproductive age.
2. The ability of a population to maintain or increase its numbers in succeeding generations."[/i]
(Dictionary.com, former Ofxord Lexico)
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree.
Quoting Vera Mont
This is correct. However, we are not talking here just about words and semantics. We are talking about concepts and principles. In fact, about a whole theory of evolution.
Thanks for your contribution to the topic.
(Are you sure this is only "two cents"? :grin:)
Quoting javra
I see what you mean. But is just "survives" enough? Every organism survives ...
I believe that Darwin's "reproductive success" is very clear and satisfies his theory. If we have to translate it in to "survival", we could say "the form that survives longer, in terms of generations". As we say figuratively that a person "survives through his children".
Quoting javra
Yes, it can be interprested in different ways. However, as I mentioned to @Vera Mont, there's only one definition as far as Darwin's theory is concerned. Which, BTW, I missed to include in my description of the topic. (See https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/782308.)
Otherwise, your analysis is quite interesting and its purpose is clear.
Quoting javra
Ha! :smile:
Quoting javra
Good point.
Quoting javra
I agree.
Quoting javra
Well said. I agree.
Thanks for considering and responding to all 3 questions!
As I see the whole thing now, it nust be quite a tiresome task! :grin:
I, liked it! :up:
Very interesting. Thanks for bringing it up. :up:
(I don't know however when I'll find the time to read all that --including @Wayfarer's recommendation-- the whole works, I mean. Considering also that I have already a backlog of things to read and that I am not a fast reader! :smile:)
Indeed! Our little project has fallen flat on its face! El Rachum!
I made a correction in an earlier comment about that: it was Alfred Russel Wallace, not Spencer himself who talked to and persuaded Darwin about "survival of the fittest". (https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/06/03/the_problem_with_survival_of_the_fittest_778335.html). But this trivial, anyway.
Quoting L'éléphant
I believe one has to roll up his sleeves ans start searching the web regarding the subject to found out details about that! :smile:
Quoting L'éléphant
Right. It's a wrong interpretation of Darwin's concept of "fittest", as I described earlier. Yet, I think that the concepts of "strongest", "better suited for survival", etc.-- have prevailed, and this has bad consequences for the human species.
So, afterall, maybe Darwin should have known better and stick to his "natural selection", with the concept of the "fittest" staying in the background. Yet, as it is discussed in here, even the concept of "natural selection" has its own flaws.
Indeed, it applies to us in every sense. And IMO more than to animals, esp. in the sense of "strongest" or "more suitable for survival", which --for better or worse-- has prevailed. To that, we have to add two human elements that are missing from animals: free will and mental illnesses.
Right. It's a comfort! :grin:
Natural selection is all about the survival of the genotypic line over successive generations. The genes that survive are fit, those that do not are not fit.
In that way it is applicable to all life on Earth, including humans. The genotype of some of us will have have more copies over more generations than that of others.
What about the theory? I think it works pretty well, even today. It was certainly a solid foundation for the new branch of scientific study that Darwin's generation pioneered.
How it relates to humans: true and correct, insofar as speciation is concerned. Generally applicable to H sapiens 750,000-7000 BCE, although some strains are difficult to follow, and become quite ambiguous in the latter millennia of that period. Since the institution of city states, organized religion and imperialism, it becomes quite murky. From about 1000 BCE, it's moot.
In applying it to the social sciences, extreme caution is advised in all eras on all continents.
It's a slogan. For king and country! "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité". Workers of the World, Unite. Allahu Akbar. MAGA. Because I'm Worth It.
This one phrase has neither implications nor consequences; it can be part of a successful or unsuccessful propaganda campaign in service of a bad or a terrible political agenda. (Good ones don't need slogans; they have reason and purpose.)
It can only be applied deliberately to human life; all other life continues only as long and far as humans allow it to. For other species, only one aspect of fitness still is effect: their ability to adapt to humans.
My remark about words and semantics referred to the element of language, based on what you said: "he couldn't have foreseen what the future speakers of English" ...
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, I believe it was a solid foundation at the time and it still is today, in its basic aspects, but it has limitations, esp. regarding human species. First of all, technology has changed dramatically since 250 years ago. E.g. @L'éléphant talked about adaptation based on mutation. Medicine can do "miracles" today. All that do not belong to "natural selection" but rather to "artificial changes". But even, if we don't take these changes into account, NS or SOF fails utterly in matters of the human mind and the human nature. A basic example is that it does not take into account human mind and consciouness.
"The problem with the theory of evolution by natural selection, according to [Thomas] Nagel, is that it does not provide an understanding of consciousness as a likely product of evolution. Therefore, we face a double mystery: We are unable to explain the relationship between the mental and the physical, and we cannot explain why and how consciousness evolved. Furthermore, given that consciousness is a feature of life, if we cannot explain how and why consciousness evolved, we cannot fully account for life." (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/64/4/355/248583)
Good points.
I don't think that's a question for 19th century biology.
No. But I believe it's a question for today, and not only for biology ...
Okay. So why drag Darwin into it?
Quoting Wayfarer
Okay, thank you for the information. At least I know I'm in good company.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Noted.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
:sweat: Yes, I know. That's why I'm thanking @javra and @Wayfarer for providing the passages. I was visiting a friend yesterday and couldn't isolate a good amount of time for this forum.
I dont think it supports racism unless one believes in race or is in some way a methodological collectivist.
That being said I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Spencer lately. His areas of interest were so vast that I cannot think of anyone else who has thought about and written upon as much. His moral and political philosophies contradict the implications adopted by others, for instance eugenics, showing that his haters have wrongly and undeservedly cast him with aspersions from which his reputation has yet to recover. Such a shame.
To try to clarify what I was saying:
A) When contextualized by the modern field of biological evolution, the term survive can in a very rough way be equated to the term outlive (as in, "children typically survive their own parents", as you've mentioned) - this rather than holding the meaning of continuing to live. Since survival of the fittest is applied in the context of biological evolution, this phrase could then be reworded as the outliving of those forms which are fittest.
[Hence, to my understanding: When the term is thus evolutionarily applied, an organism that lives its whole life without reproducing does not evolutionarily survive - for there is no form it serves as ancestor to that outlives it.]
B) Next, when fitness is biologically defined as the quantitative representation of a forms reproductive success or something to the like (of note: when thus understood, "fitness" strictly applies to the Neo-Darwinian synthesis of Darwin and Mendel, being a semantic unknown to Darwin himself), the term fitness too can be roughly equated to the attribute of outliving (that which one was biologically generated by).
[Note that the continuing to live ("survival" in this sense) of that form which holds greatest reproductive success ("fitness" in its modern evolutionary sense) is not a very cogent proposition in the context of evolutionary theory. For example, an organism with very short lifespan that successfully reproduces galore will have a relatively great fitness - despite not continuing to live for very long.]
C) Then, when integrating (a) with (b), within this context of Neo-Darwinian biological evolution, one could potentially conclude that the biological phrase survival of the fittest can translate via its biological semantics into the outliving (of ancestors) of that form which most outlives (its ancestors) or, again via semantics typically applied to the field of modern evolutionary theory, into the survival of that form which most survives.
[To emphasize, "fitness" as, in short, reproductive success is a biological notion that was unknown to Darwin and his contemporaries (Spencer, Wallace, etc.). It was first proposed with its modern biological sense in 1924. So, while survival of the fittest could have made sense in a Darwinian model of evolution (given that "fitness" did not then entail a quantitative representation of a form's reproductive success), in the Neo-Darwinian model of evolution this phrase does run a significant risk of being interpreted as a tautology among biologists in the field.]
Thats my best current impression, at any rate.
Out of curiosity, I once read though most of his "Principles of Ethics". I found it to be utilitarianism 101. A very different spiel than what we now commonly interpret by the notion of "Social Darwinism". So I'm seconding your comments here.
Agree.
Quoting javra
Agree.
Quoting javra
Right
Quoting javra
You lost me here! :grin:
But it's OK. Not important.
Quoting javra
Right.
Quoting javra
As I mentioned to @Vera Mont earlier, words and semantics here are no that important as are concepts and principles. In fact, we are talking about a whole theory. What I mean is that e.g. the word "fittest" may have different meanings, but what is important is the whole theory that lies behind it.
A simpler example: For the Americans, the word "football" refers to two completely different games: the international one, which is played exclusively with the feet, and their own, which is played mainly with the hands. (What a linguistic perversion! :smile). Now, one can disregard semantics and consider what we are interested in: the game of the American football itself.
Quoting javra
I see what you mean,
I consider all this an exellent analysis! :up:
To all the same clarify: Gregor Mendel is the guy who discovered genes by working on pea plants. He knew of Darwin's work but his is work was unknown to Darwin. It wasn't until later than Mendel's discovery of genes was incorporated with Darwin's notion of natural selection. This incorporation of Darwin's work with Mendel's work goes by the name of Neo-Darwinism. Properly speaking, today's biological notion of "fitness" is not a Darwinian concept but a Neo-Darwinian one - one which Darwin himself was ignorant of, since he did not know about genes.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Glad it made sense. Cheers. :grin:
Because Darwin is still relevant today. Because his evolution theory and his works in general had a huge impact on the scientific world and our lives. I believe more than we can ever think of.
And regarding science today ...
"Modern thought is most dependent on the influence of Charles Darwin"
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/darwins-influence-on-modern-thought1/
"Charles Darwin is centrally important in the development of scientific and humanist ideas because he first made people aware of their place in the evolutionary process when the most powerful and intelligent form of life discovered how humanity had evolved."
https://leakeyfoundation.org/the-importance-of-charles-darwin-2/
The notions that underpin Charles Darwins theory of evolution can provide us with tools to tackle the challenges of the contemporary world. His work is worth revisiting.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2021-11-21-the-relevance-of-charles-darwin-in-the-contemporary-world-of-viruses-climate-crisis-and-artificial-intelligence/
Thanks for the clarification. :smile:
To science! Not to the political world - either then or now. People have abused his work, dragged his name through all kinds of muck and tattered his reputation for a century and a half... That doesn't meanwe have to!
The references I brought up talk also about influences ouside science.
Darwins influence is far from limited to science. His work has influenced a wide range of topics including political and economic thinking.
https://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/politics-economics
The uses of natural selection argument in politics have been constant since Charles Darwins times.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/abs/darwins-politics-of-selection/D261B9D9684DA736266F790A6E7728A7
And, of course, we must not forget about Nazis and eugenics, which are connected with Darwin.
You can find yourself dozens of references on the subject.
Of course I can find many examples of abuses, and a few of balanced judgment.
Darwin himself didn't mix in with any of of the extreme views. He did meticulous, painstaking research, observation, sampling and recording, which, as I understand it, he was reluctant to publish, because it remained forever incomplete. He did good science. If his moral and political views were not expressed with sufficient clarity, it may be because he didn't have an agenda, or any idea where his observations might lead other thinkers.
Attribution matters.
I have no doubt about that. And, as I do not recall well about the work(s) a I read from him in college, I'm not in a position to judge it (them) at present. That's why I brought up references from people who know better. Yours too is welcome, of course.
As an interesting tidbit in terms of Darwins ethics, he is well enough known for his anti-slavery/abolitionist stances. A far cry from what we often interpret by survival of the fittest. For example, heres an excerpt from his autobiography:
To my way of seeing, getting the captain of the ship you are a guest on (in the middle of a vast ocean you could easily fall into) angry by questioning his moral character takes, should I say, a great deal of gall. Kudos to him.
I have never questioned Darwin's ethics. Neither do the references I have found --some of which I have brought in here-- that are opposed to some aspects of his work.
If I create a system or theory that has flaws or is prone to misinterpration and abuse, it doesn't mean that I did it with the purpose to harm, i.e. I am unethical.
I think this was clear from my part, because I have talked about the misinterpretation and abuse of the principle of "survival of the fittest". Yet, I believe it was a mistake by Darwin to introduce a theory based on that name, which alludes to strength, power and that kind of things. But even if this didn't happen, and the name "natural selection" was kept, there are other elements in his theory that allow it to be easily misinterpreted and abused. Lack of a clear differentiation between Man and animals or organisms, in general, was also a big mistake with bad consequences. I halve talked about that.
Quoting javra
OK. Kudos to him! :smile:
'The Scottish Enlightenment was a period of cultural, intellectual, and scientific advancement that took place in Scotland in the 18th century. It was a time of significant progress in many areas, including philosophy, economics, science, education, and politics.
During this period, Scotland produced a remarkable number of great thinkers and writers, including Adam Smith, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and Francis Hutcheson. These intellectuals challenged traditional beliefs and practices, and championed new ideas such as individual freedom, scientific inquiry, and the power of reason.
One of the most significant contributions of the Scottish Enlightenment was the development of the concept of political economy. Adam Smith's book "The Wealth of Nations" laid the groundwork for modern economic theory by arguing that markets should be free from government intervention and that individual self-interest could lead to the greater good of society.
The Scottish Enlightenment also saw advances in education, with the establishment of the University of Edinburgh and the development of a national system of education. This focus on education helped to create a more informed and literate population, which in turn contributed to the development of a thriving literary and cultural scene.
Overall, the Scottish Enlightenment was a period of great intellectual and cultural achievement that helped to shape modern Western thought and values. Its legacy can still be felt today, particularly in the fields of philosophy, economics, and education.'
Darwin was historically later, but his ideas were very much influenced by it. Enlightenment values very much stressed individual thought but were also anchored in the Adam Smith's idea of 'enlightened self interest'. It was all for political and economic freedom and development and not an inhumane political philosophy.
Yes, and it may have helped that he was at the University of Edinburgh for two years before he dropped out and was sent to Cambridge to take the theological route.
Me, I was a lazy student and couldnt get into Edinburgh.
Only, there is no difference. I see no justification for capitalizing the name of one species, as it were somehow to be lifted out of nature. Man has, indeed, turned on nature, opposed, subjugated and largely destroyed it - but that does not negate his origin.
OK.
Thank you for your contribution to the topic.
To go off in a bit different direction... I just finished "What Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology" by Addy Pross. In it, he goes to a lot of trouble to define survival of the fittest in chemical terms as dynamic kinetic stability, which removes a lot of possibly unwanted implications from the process. This is from one of Pross's papers:
Quoting How Does Biology Emerge from Chemistry?
The linked website also includes a review of the very short article.
Thank you for your response to the topic.
All this looks interesting, but unfortunately I cannot undestand much of it since I totally lack the necessary background. I hope though that there are people in here who can and will appreciate more your post.
Thank you for participating in this discussion.
Quoting PhilosophyRunner
Natural selection is of course the main element in the evolution of life. But it leaves out a lot of other important elements that are also involved in this evolution.
Big catastrophic events and massive desctuctions, , etc., resulting sometines to extinction, have nothing to do with "natural selection".
All there are unintended events. But was also have intended actions that lead to the same results: genocides, killing wildlife, etc.
And then we have somthing else, wuite important. which is in conrast to natural selection: it's "artificial selection". It plays also an important part in the evolution of life.
"Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding)
So, from one side, man kills wildlife and from another side he raises domesticated animals and creates hybrids that can survive better. Neither of these are "natural selection".
Thank you for participating in this discussion.
Quoting NOS4A2
This sound interesting and I would like to know more about it.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, it doesn't support racism. It's racism that supports it. :smile:
Racism supports the superiority, supremacy and dominance of one race or group over another.
Sometimes, with huge consequences, like genocides. Just replace "fittest" with "superior".
Quoting NOS4A2
I have not read his work, but I believe that what you say may indeed be true. We have talked here about misconception and abuse of the SOF principle.
On the other hand, we cannot ignore some important references referring to his works and the effect they have had on history.
"Social Darwinism is a loose set of ideologies that emerged in the late 1800s in which Charles Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection was used to justify certain political, social, or economic views. Social Darwinists believe in survival of the fittestthe idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century and a half."
https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/social-darwinism
"In the United States, social Darwinism and American exceptionalism allowed nativists to dehumanize and criminalize immigrants, portraying them as 'unassimilable aliens,' 'unwelcome invasions,' 'undesirable,' 'diseased,' [and] 'illegal."
https://www.bu.edu/writingprogram/journal/past-issues/issue-9/huang/
"Many Social Darwinists embraced laissez-faire capitalism and racism. They believed that government should not interfere in the survival of the fittest by helping the poor, and promoted the idea that some races are biologically superior to others."
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-gilded-age/gilded-age/a/social-darwinism-in-the-gilded-age
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Quoting Wayfarer
This is very interesting. Good that you brought it up. :up:
Was reading through this thread, and it was so pleasant to finally read a post where someone recognized this.
Yes, the process of evolution has been enormously complex, and perhaps, "Surival of the fittest.", is a step in the wrong direction from "Shut up and study this tangled bank."
[Quote]It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.[/quote]
Not survival of the fittest, so much as survival of what fits.
Yes, it can also have this meaning and maybe other meanings too. Only that it's a failed interpretation, because in a competition they all survive, not only the fittest one. The fittest one is simply in a better condition than the rest. In a track field race, the fastest one wins and takes the golden medal, but the 2nd and 3d ones also win. And in a Marathon, everyone who finishes wins; the first one is simply the best.
But most importantly, we must never forget what this phrase --with its original meaning-- alludes to, esp. as related to Nazis, who used it as a principle and motto, with its known to all atrocious consequences. And of course, it is still in use by neo-Nazis and all kinds of fascists.
Competition is good. It promotes improvement. "Survival of the fittest" is bad, even as a concept. And, I believe that it should be kept with its original meaning alone. There are many other expressions that can be used for competition and other cases that might just remind of "Survival of the fittest".
Quoting Janus
This is true too. But as with competion, I'm afraid that these interpretations are only attempts to moderate the bad effect that Darwin's (controversial) theory has.
So, again, I believe that the phrase "Survival of the fittest" should be kept with its original meaning alone.
The idea as I understand it is that it is the competition for survival, so they don't all survive. It is not necessarily competition directly against the others as in fighting to the death, but competition for resources. Those who gain the resources survive and those who cannot die.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
What "bad effect"? I see that part of Darwin's theory as being pretty much tautologous: it amounts to "those who can survive do and are more likely to reproduce than those who cannot survive."
I know what you mean. Only that I cannot think of any such case, I mean where people have died --certainly not on a large scale-- because of lack of resources, those being water, oil, electric power or other public utility services. But maybe you have some examples.
The only case I can think right now in which "competition" can be applied to the "fittest" principle is in sports matches bewteen two persons or teams. where only the winner "survives" (in a figurative way).
However, one should certainly not generalize from such special cases.
Quoting Janus
I already talked about that. (Re: Nazis)
Quoting Janus
Yes, I know about this. But, if I'm not mistaken, it is a circular statement: I have to survive in order to reproduce, but at the same time, in order to survive I have to reproduce. ("I" of course extending to my family (as genealogy), my group, my country, my race, etc.)
Then, what about the poor families all over the world, esp. in India, which is overpopulated), who are over-reproductive? Can they be considered as fittest, when they die from famine, diseases and all sort of things just because they are poor? And if we do consider these as "fittest", it would be like saying that the poor one day will reign the world!
And similar sorts of principles show up in what sort of matter sticks around in the universe. Maybe even in the way "more empty" vacuum tends to be more unstable, and so will tend towards spontaneously producing quark condensate.
I think the conception of biological evolution as necessarily this sort of suis generis thing is rooted in philosophical issues, soloing in the sciences, and the fact that evolution became THE battleground over religion and that this leads to confusion here. "Survival of the fittest," works well for all sorts of things we don't think of as living.
When you consider that "survival" in evolution theory refers to the species, which is a type, rather than to individuals, this becomes even more evident. The stability of molecules for example, is the reason why the periodic table of elements is arranged in the way that it is. Specific types of molecules are more apt to survive.
The problem though, is that life likes to make use of instability, as instability provides for the special capacities which living things enjoy. This means that survival, and having special capacities to be able to enjoy being alive, are two distinct ends, which at the fundamental level must be very much in confliction. I suppose this is why risk-taking is exhilarating.
Evolutionary theory therefore, ought to take into account both of these two conflicting purposeful features of being alive, modeling evolution as a sort of balancing process. And by being an imperfect balance, employing the instability which is available within its own being, life is allowed to extend itself towards a multitude of different types of enjoyment, which it discovers through its journeys. Current conventional evolutionary theory is very one-sided, representing stability only, as survival, and this is not at all representative of what it means to be alive. This is because it completely misses what it means to enjoy being alive, and the enjoyment of being alive is what drives the will to survive.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
It seems that in popular parlance the concept of "survival of the fittest" is used as a heuristic for identifying the right course of action, the moral course of action, and to justify it. "Those who survive are doing things right".
In practical examples, this also means that someone who commits a crime but manages not to get caught by the justice system is "doing the right thing".
Whitehead's "The Function of Reason," deals with this, the distinction for individual living entities. It's the difference between "wanting to live," and "wanting to live well." Yet, I can't say Whitehead's ideas were particularly successful in biology writ large. There is still very much a wall between consideration of the intentionality that evolution appears to produce, and evolution as such.
And this might also explain why there is so much resistance to expanding the term "natural selection," to other phenomena, even lower level phenomena that doesn't involve intentionality. If natural selection, the process that appears to "lead to intentionality," were to be grounded in a sort of "universal process," instead of a suis generis one that occurs "by random chance," then it seems to open up the door to claims about "purpose as a trait of nature," and "universal purpose."
But my thoughts are:
A. So what?
B. It seems any claims about universal purpose would still be highly speculative, so why get so upset? The reaction seems like dogmatic policing. Further, if the universe is deterministic, then claims that it "inexorably gave rise to greater complexity, life, and goal directed behavior," are simply trivially true on first analysis (only eliminitivism seems to get around this). This certainly doesn't confirm Young Earth Creationism or make a case for not teaching evolution in schools however, so why the resistance?
C. If the universe produced us, and we have purposes, then nature already obviously does create purpose. In a rather straightforward way, plungers are for unclogging toilets, hearts are for pumping blood, etc. Any comprehensive theory of the world needs to explain these, not deny them. If hearts don't have a purpose in the way plungers or corporations do, we need to be able to explain the similarities and differences in terms of something we DO understand, not claim the difference is in presence or lack "of purpose," the very thing we want to understand. That's just circular, question begging, and dogmatic.
No problem. I did. Thanks for the notice.
Quoting baker
I don't think this is a popular viewpoint among all people. But it must be certainly popular among criminals, fascists, bullies and in general by irrational and insane people.
Quoting baker
Likewise. In whatever way you look at it, it's a sick viewpoint and/or interpretation.
The concept of the "survival of the fittest" has been originated in framework where the sense of morality was totally absent. And it must be kept in that framework. The consequences I'm talking about resulted from misinterpetation and misuse, intentional or not. And I consider Darwin and the scientists who supported and still support his theory of evolution in part responsible for that. The concept could well be expressed in a different way that would be more comprehensible and would not incite --it really does!-- violence and all kinds of offensive and harmful behavior.
Most often, people behave based on mottos and ideas, rather than on knowledge, prudence or logic. Almost everyone has met the phrase in question at least once in one's life. How many do they know the theory behind it, or even what does it really mean?
Those who are repeatedly outcompeted for jobs, eventually die homeless.
The point of competition (in real-life settings) is that not everyone gets to survive.
I think you're taking the sports analogy too far. Sports competitions are games, they are not the life-and-death competitions of everyday life.
(And also, sometimes in sports the difference between the first-placed and the tenth-placed is a fraction of a second or a few centimeters. In absolute terms, the difference is trivial, and yet anyone who doesn't make it to the best three is dismissed as a loser.)
And in a fascist environment, this means ...
Your points are good..
Well, the subject of "competition" was brought up by @Janus, who said that ""Survival of the fittest" has come to imply competition", with which I disagree, anyway.
Moreover, this has drifted us away from the subject of the topic, which --as a reminder-- is "'Survival of the Fittest;: Its meaning and its implications for our life". The meaning and implications of competition is a different subject and could form topic by itself.
Also, lack of food, lack of adequate medical services. lack of access to education , contraceptives...
Quoting Alkis Piskas
This is a case in point. Of course, a society that becomes overpopulated and cannot provide for its people is not "fittest".
I think the problem you are demonstrating is that if you switch to "universal purpose", you need to adjust your premises accordingly. You can no longer talk about nature creating purpose, because nature would be created with purpose, therefore purpose would be prior to nature, and not the type of thing which nature creates. Then we need to look at intention as it is evident to us, within ourselves, as an example of it, in order to understand it in the universe in general.
We can see that there is a problem with looking at the object created with intention and trying to determine the intention behind its creation. This is because of the nature of the "necessity" involved in this relation. It is not a logical "necessity", but "necessity" in the sense of what is determined as needed, for the sake of something else, and that judgement may be carried out without the use of logic. Also, the object created may be used in a way other than the way intended by the creator, and this is evidence of that problem.
So we might refer to the "accidentals" of things created with intention. The reality of accidentals ensures that there is no logical necessity in the relationship between the intent and the thing created with that intent. Therefore logic does not provide us with the means for understanding the intention or purpose behind a thing, from an analysis of the thing produced with intention. Accordingly, we cannot understand the intent or purpose behind the universe, or nature in general, through a study of these as objects.
However, if we look at intention directly, as it exists within us, we can see this lack of logical necessity from the other side, from the side of intention itself, and it appears to us as free will. When we have a goal or objective we may consider numerous options for achieving that end. There is no direct and logically necessary relationship between means and ends, and this is why we presume the reality of free will. We may choose our means. Furthermore, the end or goal, as what is desired or needed, is never fixed but is adaptable and may be manipulated according the apprehension of available means. This implies that both means and ends are flexible.
That the ends are flexible has a considerable effect when we attempt to understand the intention from the point of view of analyzing the intentionally created object. Because the artist may adapt the goal to be suitable to the means available, the object created may be not a very good representation of the true intention, as the original ideal, but a representation of a very compromised form of the intention.